by Sin
More guards ran in and he made no move to stop them. They grabbed hold of him and forced him to his knees. His blue eyes stayed locked on mine, leaving me no option but to look away.
"What will you have us do with him?" one of the guards asked, looking at Rowan.
I slid off Rowan slowly and he pulled the sheets up, covering my naked body from the leering eyes of his guards. I kept my eyes forward and refused to look at Cedric. I had purposely hurt him so he’d leave and never come back. I needed to know he was safe and if doing this in front of him was the only way to guarantee it, then so be it.
Rowan climbed out of the bed and I prayed he had covered himself with something, anything. Cedric had been hurt enough--he didn’t need Rowan flaunting it in his face. I had handled that all on my own.
Rowan sighed as he spoke to his men. "Ah, I have made my lovely bride-to-be a promise. Take him to the portal to the human realm and leave him." I glanced at Rowan and his eyes met mine. "Make sure not to harm one hair on his pretty little head, or you will answer to me personally."
There was a collective gasp and I knew that not one of Rowan’s men wanted to be on the receiving end of one of his punishments. I looked back at Rowan and saw he had put his robe on and was thankful for that. My gaze flickered to Cedric and I found him searching me for signs of what to do. I’d thought my little production was enough to drive him away, now I wasn’t so sure.
"Mackenzie, don’t do this,” Cedric pleaded.
I went to answer but Rowan beat me to it. "I strongly suggest you leave willingly. I do not want her upset. She is in a delicate state now and she does not need you adding to it." He made it sound like I was pregnant. I looked at Cedric and his face paled considerably with the same thought.
I shook my head slightly and bit at my lower lip to keep from crying. Cedric didn’t budge. "I want to hear Mackenzie tell me to leave. If I hear that she doesn’t love me, from her own lips, then and only then will I leave. Mack?"
Rowan protested, but I put my hand up to speak. "I want you to leave, Cedric."
Rowan smiled and I shot him a nasty look. He stopped instantly. Cedric pushed free of the guards and ran towards me. He was to me before any of them to could reach him. He grabbed my arm and dropped down before me. "He made you sleep with him, didn’t he? He threatened to kill me and made you exchange sex for my safety, didn’t he? Don’t lie to me, Mack. I’m part of you now and could feel your terror when I returned home. I relived what you went through. I know he forced himself on you there. And I know you don’t want this. You want to come with me, don’t you?"
I shook my head slightly, trying to convince him that he was wrong, but I’d never been a good liar. He planted his lips firmly on mine and my stomach lurched forward with need. My chest tightened. Cedric’s body was ripped away from mine and he looked down at me as Rowan held him.
"Did you do this to protect me?" Cedric asked again. The moment of passion he’d just given me now made it impossible for me to lie to him, and he knew that. Faeries are incapable of lying during moments of passion and Cedric had played off an old curse.
"Yes, but that’s not the only reason," I said, telling him the complete truth.
"Then what?" he asked, yanking his arm away from Rowan’s hand.
Rowan leaned over and pulled the sheet down, lifting my arm in the air quickly. "Look, look at how thin she is. Did she confess to you that she was dying? Did she tell you she was letting my magik eat away at her body to be with you?"
I ripped my arm away from Rowan and covered myself with the sheet. I didn’t care if the guards saw me naked. Nudity was beautiful and normal for a faerie. I cared more about hiding the ugly truth from Cedric.
Cedric looked at Rowan and shook his head. "You’re lying. Mackenzie would have told me, we don’t keep secrets. If it were that bad, she would have let me know. You’re just looking for any reason to justify this, right Mack?" He looked over at me.
I wanted to lie to him to make him feel better, but there was no point in it. "He’s not lying, Cedric. It’s been that bad. I’ve been sick for close to two months now and I knew it was bad, to the point I’ve seen the Goddess Morrigan. Sometimes she appears to me in dreams and then again the other night as a raven. I knew it was her because she followed me home."
Both men drew in deep breaths. They knew the significance of seeing Morrigan and neither of them questioned me on it. They turned to each other. I expected a battle to break out and was shocked when it didn’t. Cedric looked at Rowan and they seemed to a moment of complete understanding.
"Won’t the same thing happen without me?" Cedric asked calmly.
Rowan tied his robe and looked at me. "Now, we do not know for sure, but...."
As if on cue, I coughed hard and brought my hand to my mouth. I knew without looking that I had just coughed up more blood. I attempted to hide it from their view, but Cedric walked to me and pulled my hand from my face. He let out a cry and dropped down next to me when he saw all the blood I was holding. He looked up at Rowan and Rowan motioned to one of the guards. They all began handing him their top robes. He took one and brought it over to me. He crouched next to Cedric and took my hand in his. He wiped the blood from it and glanced at Cedric.
"I have seen this before," Rowan said softly.
Cedric and I looked at him and waited for him to go on. It seemed like an eternity before he finally did. "I was just a boy, but I remember my mother getting thinner and thinner. I would sit next to her while she coughed to the point blood came up. I watched, but did not understand her body was shutting down. I had always thought the Si to be immortal. When she finally let out her final breath, I could not understand why she did not wake up." His eyes closed slightly and he took my hand in his. I didn’t pull away and Cedric didn’t make a big deal about it. "I asked my father why it was she passed when we were supposed to live forever and he told me that she was being punished.
"I did not understand what he meant then, but I do now. My mother was in love with another but my father would not allow her to see him, so you could say that she died of a broken heart."
"That is where humans get that saying from," Cedric said, putting his hand over ours. "Your mother is not the only Si to have perished this way. Our history books are full of accounts, but none are recent. It seems that the thinning of the bloodlines prevented this from happening. Your mother was pure Si, and from royal blood, Mackenzie is the same."
Rowan yanked his hand away from ours and rose to his feet. He turned his back to us and stood tall. "Take her and leave." I wasn’t sure I heard him right. I was about to ask him to repeat himself when he beat me to the punch. "Get out now, before I change my mind. I will not look for you and you are free of your obligations to me. I’ll do my best to handle the marriage contract."
I tried to stand and was attacked by another coughing fit. Cedric wrapped his arms around me tight and pulled me to him. "It’s okay, Mack, I’m here, relax, it’s okay."
"Get out!" Rowan yelled, startling both Cedric and me.
"Let’s go, Cedric."
He put his arms under me and picked me up. He turned me slowly to face Rowan. "Look at her," he demanded. Rowan turned his head slightly and glanced at me. Cedric pushed me out towards him. "Take a good look at her and remember her, because she will be dead soon if you turn your back on her."
My head snapped around so fast that I was sure I’d pulled something. I looked at Cedric and thought this was his way of punishing me for trying to push him away. He stared down at me, but spoke to Rowan. "She will die without us both and as much as I hate you, I am not willing to sacrifice Mackenzie. If you cast her out of your life, because you can’t watch another woman you love die like this, then you should drive a sword through her heart now and save her the pain of dying slowly. Do you want to be like your father? Do want Mackenzie to rot away like your mother did?"
Rowan spun around and I felt his power rising. Cedric pulled his own up quickly and wrapped it around us protect
ively. Rowan dropped his magik when our gazes met. His shoulders slumped and he no longer looked foreboding. He looked vulnerable and that wasn’t a word I’d ever thought I would use to describe him.
"If I can stop this from happening, I will," he said.
There was a shuffle outside the door and one of the guards yelled out to Rowan, "King Torean approaches!"
Rowan’s face went pale and Cedric’s grip on me tightened. Rowan ran to Cedric and took me from his arms. He looked over towards a door behind us and nodded his head. "Go quickly and hide in there. If he finds you here, he will not care what happens to Mackenzie, he will have you executed and without you she will surely die."
Cedric did as Rowan suggested and I wasn’t sure what to say, everything was happening so fast. Rowan put me on the bed, disrobed, and put his body over mine. He looked back at the guards and they all nodded at him. Each guard lined up and turned his back from us. Rowan looked down at me and put his lips on mine, his hips ground against my body and for a minute I thought that he was going to start making love to me again.
I heard a loud clapping noise and glanced up into Rowan’s dark eyes. He winked at me and pulled his mouth away. He reached over and pulled the sheet over the lower half of our bodies, making it look like we’d been caught in the act of making love.
I’d never seen King Torean before and was curious as to what he might look like. I peeked over the edge of Rowan’s shoulder and gasped when I saw how similar the two men looked. Torean looked to be about five years older than Rowan, if that, but that was the only difference. Faeries don’t age like humans, but even this knowledge did little to comfort me. It was unsettling how similar they were. Both men’s skin were bronzed, their eyes chocolaty, and their hair so brown that it bordered on black.
I wanted to try to stand, so I could bow before him, but Rowan held me still beneath him. "Hello father, what do you want?"
"I heard the Princess had arrived and I came to great my future daughter-in-law," Torean said. His voice was almost identical to Rowan’s and I shuddered. Rowan caught this and pulled the sheets up higher trying to warm me.
"Father, Mackenzie... Mackenzie, my father, now if you do not mind," Rowan said, his voice sounding very condescending--borderline agitated.
King Torean pushed past the guards and looked at me. I was still so unnerved by how much he looked like Rowan that I was speechless. He smiled and it screamed sex. Not the type of sex women wanted but the kind that came at great cost to personal safety. No part of his look was as it should be. He made my skin crawl.
He licked his lips slightly and winked at me. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Mackenzie. I sent word to your mother that you are here and that you are safe. If everything goes according to schedule…" He winked at me again and this time Rowan caught it. Rowan’s entire body tightened and I put my hand on his cheek to try to calm him down. "Yes, it is good to have you with us. This place could use a woman’s touch. It is amazing how much a woman’s touch can ease any pain."
Torean abruptly turned and walked out of the room. The guards followed close behind him and shut the door on their way out. Rowan didn’t move. Cedric started to open the door, but Rowan threw power out and slammed the door closed. I began to protest and Rowan’s mouth dropped to mine. The door to the room opened again and I heard Torean’s voice.
"I forgot to give you my blessing, son. Do not do anything I wouldn’t do," he said, and left.
This time Rowan did roll off me. Cedric opened the door and poked his head out. "Is the coast clear?"
Rowan appeared stumped by this. It hit me that he wasn’t familiar with human phrases. I touched his arm. "He wants to know if it’s safe to come out."
"Oh, yes, he is gone now."
I looked over at Rowan and let my body shake off the uneasy feeling that his father gave me. "Your father makes my skin crawl." I didn’t feel bad saying it.
Rowan smiled. "As he should, he is a dangerous man, Mackenzie, and I fear he has taken an unhealthy interest in you."
"What does that mean?" Cedric asked.
"It means he will stop at nothing to have her, if he decides he wants to claim her."
Cedric turned and lashed power out into thin air. He let out a muffled cry and turned back to us as if nothing had happened. "You people are all crazy here... the entire lot of the Unblessed ones are insane. I thought that only you were, I mean, you came to see me enough in your dungeons that for a while I thought you were obsessed with me, but your fascination with Mackenzie was sick."
I tried to stand, wanting to head off another fight, but Rowan touched me and I stopped. He rose slowly. "What do you mean? I only came to you once, the night you were captured. I was in charge of finding out how much you knew. I thought you a waste of my time so I did not bother visiting you again."
"Bullshit," Cedric said, using his mortal slang perfectly. Rowan appeared lost again but Cedric went on anyways. "Mack, drop your glamour for me."
I did. His tattoos faded away, and were replaced by scars on his arms, and one large one on his throat. Cedric touched it and tipped his head back. "You did this to me. You slit my throat and waited until I was on the verge of death before you mind raped me."
I couldn’t take the pain in his eyes anymore and I threw my glamour back up, hiding the scars and bringing back the tattoos I’d come to love. Cedric’s scars weren’t a problem for me. I’d love him if his entire body was covered in warts, but he didn’t like having them and I wanted him comfortable. Rowan glanced over at me and I looked to Cedric.
"Wait, you said I mind raped you?" Rowan asked sounding a bit confused.
Cedric let out a loud laugh. "Yeah, you leeched out my memories of Mackenzie and you seemed to get off on them. In fact, I remember one occasion when you literally did get off." He shuddered and let his eyelids fall closed.
Rowan threw his hand in the air and I thought he was going to use magik on Cedric. He didn’t and I exhaled. "I do not have the ability to pull thoughts from anyone’s mind but Mackenzie and that is only because she and I have exchanged magik--she is my mate." Something passed over his face and he looked horrified. "Oh, gods, my father...."
I pushed off the bed and got to my feet. The sheet fell to the floor, but I didn’t care. I grabbed Cedric and pulled him to me. "Did you see King Torean just now?" My voice sounded as frantic as I felt.
"No, I was in the bathroom, hiding while you played kissy face with him." He took a minute and rolled his shoulders, obviously trying to keep his cool. "I didn’t see him, why?"
I stared at Rowan and he closed his eyes. "Cedric, the King looks exactly like Rowan. It wasn’t Rowan who tortured you, it was King Torean."
"Why would he pretend to be Rowan?"
"Because he is a sick man, Cedric," Rowan answered. "I am sorry that I did not stop him. I had no idea what he was doing. I would have just killed you. I would have never tortured you so."
I shot him a nasty look. "Is that supposed to make him feel better?"
Cedric pulled me close to him. "It actually does make me feel better. It means your other mate is honorable and if we are to live as a unit then I would want him to be no other way."
"Live as a unit?" I asked, unsure what he was talking about.
Rowan moved over to me and touched my other shoulder. "Cedric is right, Mackenzie. We will have to find a way to get past our differences and live together. Your survival depends on it."
Tears welled up and I had to choke them back. "Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me believe it can work out when I’ve spent four months thinking I’d die never feeling complete again."
They embraced me tight, neither fought to be the one to hold me more. For the moment, they seemed to find common ground and my heart leapt to my throat.
Epilogue
We’ve not confronted the King yet, nor are we planning to. He would kill Cedric, and in turn me. In truth, if Cedric were harmed I’d want to die, but the vicious cycle of our affair meant I would take Rowan to th
e grave as well. Rowan isn’t willing to sacrifice all of us just to call his father out on his lies.
I wanted to leave, and return home immediately, but Cedric was the one to say no. "It’s not safe yet, Mackenzie. I will find somewhere the King cannot find us and then I will come and collect the two of you. Rowan will keep you safe and I shall not be gone long. Soon we will be safe and we will make our new arrangement work--I promise you that."
I hope he’s right, but the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach tells me that this is far from over. Rowan and Cedric are forces to be reckoned with and both fear the King. His obsession with me is growing and I know that if I don’t get away from him soon, we’ll all pay the price.
Peace Offerings III:
Tranquility
© copyright by Mandy M. Roth, May 2008
Chapter One
“My lady, the hour grows late. You are due in the grand hall for dinner with the King shortly. Surely you wish to be a bit more presentable.”
I cast a wary glance towards one of the women who seemed to be everywhere at once within the castle walls. I could scarcely sneeze without one of them tripping over themselves to assure I had something to wipe my nose with. It bordered on maddening yet there was little I could do to make is cease. In truth, my sour mood had less to do with being stalked by servants than it did with my dinner plans. The last thing I wanted to do was spend my evening dining with King Torean but it was inevitable. I was mated to his son, Prince Elwyn Rowan Lockland, or Rowan to those he called friends.
Rowan had been sent to deal with an uprising in the North quarter of the Unblessed Court almost a week prior. At present, he was two days overdue and my nerves were shot. I didn’t trust the King and wouldn’t put it past him to have done something to his own son.
