Chapter 1 #2
I weaved up to her, regaining my balance after the blinding orgasm and the almost dying. I couldn’t fail to notice she fit right below my chin. Our first date looked like we should burn down the Harrowlands.
“You’re an admirable success then,” she sniped. “I’ll get a bigger blade next time.”
My Nightmare swam beneath the surface of my skin, all but purring, thrilled that there would be a next time.
I didn’t blame her. Most monsters in the Harrowlands knew nothing about Nightmare Walkers, so I couldn't fault her logic in choosing what should have killed an Elf.
Some knew we dealt in shadows, in darkness.
Few knew we ate fear and dreams. No one knew how my Elven botanical inclinations mixed with a monstrous propensity for making enemies into smudges of night.
My lip curled. “Then I’ll just have to make sure your next orgasm leaves you unable to resist me.”
Maggie rolled her eyes, brushing me off. She snapped her dress together with a sigil and a flare of the magic I topped off inside her. “You're the worst.”
I stepped toward her, ego sliced to the bone, and she was smart enough to jolt back. “You haven't seen me at my worst, witch.”
The door squealed open, and we froze in our stalemate.
“Why do I have to be the one to mind the minder?” Maggie’s friend Fallon asked as she walked in, hand already on her ample hips, annoyance sparking in her eyes.
Maggie twitched forward, and I shook my head, ‘no’.
Not in front of the children. This was between us, and I wasn’t stupid enough to draw anyone else into our lover’s spat.
Her hands balled into fists tight enough that I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t try an assassination again in front of her friend.
They all thought my Pumpkin was an airheaded girl with crystals and star charts on her mind. If only they saw what I saw.
Maggie walked to the door under Fallon’s perceptive gaze. “The asshole isn't even ready yet. Still getting dressed for hells sake. You get him to dinner then.”
That’s right. She had charged in here under the pretext of getting me to dinner.
Now she stormed right off again. It was like watching a bird of paradise take flight.
That lovely killer was one more complication I didn’t need to add to my plate.
Banter was one thing. Murder was entirely another.
A messy, distracting, delicious complication.
I slid the empty handle of the dagger into my pocket to jack off to later.
“I’ll be down shortly, Fallon.”
She shrugged and left me to my own devices. I doubt she cared if I ate as long as I didn’t have a snarky opinion about her food. I just needed one second of breathing room where calamity wasn’t happening.
My mirror started a pulsing glow. Walking over to my reflection, I took up my dinner jacket with a clenched fist. Sucking in a deep breath, I let it out through my nose, trying to regain whatever calm I had left in me.
I adjusted my tight jacket over my broad shoulders, checking my long, charcoal-black hair slicked back behind the graceful swoop of my gold-pierced, Elven ears.
I looked like a King, not the Nightmare inside me.
My fist met the mirror, shattering my reflection.
Except no Elf, no True King, would have a fresh scar crawling up from under his collar and over his chin.
One more reason for my people to deny my right to the throne.
Elves didn’t show weaknesses like scars, shifting into monsters, or battling sleepless nights filled with memories.
The new trimming was courtesy of Brad, the torture-happy madman on a quest for a shifter army to rule the Harrowlands.
A final token of a dead man who had been flung across three territories and smashed to pieces.
Since my bodyguard tossed me to him in the first place, the whole sad tale was a reminder of the fact that my people didn’t want a broken half-breed on their throne.
I couldn't fix the mirror as a mirror, but it still worked to send messages. I smudged my hand along the fractured surface to bring up the person on the other end.
Her eyes loomed huge as she brought her face too close to the elaborate spell capturing her illusion.
“You're looking a little thin. Your cheekbones could cut glass now. Are you eating enough?”
Yaya, my grandmother, was never one for small talk.
The little vine poking through a gap in the stone walls curled around my finger and released it, called to my Elven magic but wary of my other, darker half.
The contact helped me hold on to my patience.
“Yaya. I can hold your illusion for only fifteen minutes.
Are you sure that's how you want to use them?”
I didn’t comment on her appearance in return, which was still ridiculously fresh even with her millennial birthday coming up.
She was so damn proud of the two crow’s feet she acquired last year.
She said they perfectly complemented her long silver and white blonde hair and enhanced her sharp features.
“Sorry.” She backed up, her lean hands steepled before her face and my body loosened a bit. “They’ve cleaned out your rooms, but I rescued Gertrude.”
All breath left my body in a rush. Thank the Godds my beauty was safe. Losing her would have been the last straw in a string of rotten straws, or however the metaphor worked.
“Not much new, but I know you wanted regular updates. The King -” Yaya flinched at what she saw of me in the mirror and quickly corrected herself.
“The usurper has declared two months of feasting. Like we all haven’t feasted to death since he walked in here with that Godds-cursed sham of a Godd object and everyone fell all over themselves to hand him the crown.
He’s gathering the Council for daily ‘huddles’, as he calls them, for as long as he can stand them.
I hear the room is already tense with violence every time they meet. Even Nemian complains in secret.”
The vine grew and curled around my wrist in a consoling grip. “They grumbled about my once-a-season meetings, and still no one has objected?”
Yaya shrugged her slim shoulders, disturbing the filmy layers of her blue ceremonial gown that offset her warm brown eyes so well. “He has the Calix.”
That simple statement had me clenching my fists, destroying the vine wrapped around me with darkness.
It was hard enough being yanked off my throne.
To find another had taken it in my absence because of a ridiculous chunk of metal, made me see red.
The Council and my people were too stupid to realize it was a fake.
Probably too excited to have me dead to pay attention.
And too greedy for the next generation of Elves to care.
They had been trying to increase their fertility for centuries; hence, the experiments with the human village.
I would have to prove the mystical object was a fake since only the True King could wield the Calix.
Waving it around, the usurper settled his legitimacy in almost every Elven mind.
I had made no progress in finding the real one.
And I was desperate enough to ask Ward to flex his unparalleled research ability.
Ward was the perfect friend like that. Managing us all into our better selves, taking care of everyone whether or not you wanted it.
I respected his power, but secretly craved his acceptance even more.
How was I going to tell him I couldn’t find a glowing sword that grew wild roses out of the hilt with the power of abundance and life?
“Right,” I said.
My Nightmare came forward in frustration. We both needed action, not discussion. I needed to be doing something instead of pacing this room.
“You will figure it out. I’m just glad you’re alive.” Her smile wobbled.
Was I? Some days, when random tremors overcame my hands and I couldn’t breathe, I wasn’t so sure Brad had been stamped out of my life. On those days, I never wanted to leave Ward’s Keep.
Her gratitude made my voice come out small. “Thank you, Yaya.”
She drew close to the mirror again. “Make sure they’re feeding you meat. You need to keep up your iron.”
I had quite enough metal today.
“I’m sorry, Yaya. The spell is wearing off. I can’t hear you very well.” I waved at the mirror, turning down the spell.
She garbled out something like, “I love you.”
“What was that?” I narrowed the connection until she faded away from my mirror. “Love you too, bye!”
Surely, grandmothers were the worst calamity to ever befall a forgotten King.