Deception (17 page)

He laughed at me.

“What?”  At least he was laughing again.  I would play on that.

“Nothing!”

I pouted my lip out and waited very patiently using a little
get what I want
time.

He shook his head.  “I just think if you conquer others as well as you have conquered me, then we are either in great shape, or big trouble.”

I folded my arms and pouted even more.  He grabbed my fleeing arms and I felt the tug of my gown being pulled to him as he laughed louder. 

Every noise in our mountain forest trek across the rocks was playing on my imagination. I’d been hiking on the mountain hundreds of times with Ian but now heard all manner of creepy sounds.  I reached out to grab Ian every so often.  Mostly, he’d just comfort me. Sometimes he laughed.  And yet sometimes I swore he seemed too alert to a probable danger.  I’d hold my breath and wait, catching his hand on the hilt of his sword, but then he’d relax and continue on.  Were there creatures crossing our path and Ian was leading us away?  This leader of the Nyms fellow?

Danella accompanied us on the trip.  “Yes, my lady.  There are creatures that would try to hurt you for many different reasons.  Your safety is held in the highest respect.”

“Promise?” I asked as the wind picked up and hit my face.

Danella stopped briefly, turned, and looked up to study my face carefully.  “Promise!”  We both continued.  Her face was kind, but I wondered if promises can ever be sure even in this world.

I turned my head sideways and smiled at her.  She’d answered my thoughts.  Ian realized what had just taken place and no doubt assumed my mind was pondering what evils lie in wait but he didn’t expand.  I wanted to slow down and walk beside him, but he always insisted on walking behind me. Before I could ponder it long, I asked him without thinking first what it would gauge.  “Why do you always walk behind me?  Even in high school. You were too clever at sneaking up on me then.”

“Can’t a guy be a gentleman?” he called from behind.

“Maybe!” I paused feeling bold, “Or maybe you just want to get a look at my rear bumper.”

I stopped and turned to see his face. I can never seem to get through his “man shield” at all.  He always had a comeback, so I tried the VERY bold effect.

“Perhaps!” he raised his one eyebrow.

Ohhh!
              I fumed.

“But still, one is a gentleman and your safety is important to me.  If I cannot see you, it makes me nervous.”

I huffed and continued on.

Pike wasn’t hard to find because Ian knew right where to look. My mind was swimming with more than I could keep up with.  And it felt good to know my thoughts were exclusively mine right then so I took a moment to think about my mother.  My thoughts jumped around about her a lot all morning.  What was she doing right now?  It would be Saturday morning.  What was dad thinking?  Did she set his mind at ease with some story that was better than, “she died in a car wreck” or even ran away?  Maybe she told him that Ian and I eloped.
I laughed out loud by accident.
 

He turned me around from a closer proximity than I realized I’d slowed to.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing, I was just trying to imagine what my mother told my dad happened to me.”

“I can tell you, if you like.” He nonchalantly shrugged and started off but I stopped him with my arm grabbing his chainmail-armed sleeve.  I loved the way it felt cool to the touch.  I kept my hand there just a bit longer and let my eyes linger on the strength his arms possessed.  He could really hurt something if he wanted to.

He moved quickly up close to my face letting me feel his wonderful cool breath on my lips.  We’d traveled in the coolest part of the day.  I shivered, but not because of the weather and he knew it.  He smiled smugly and whispered, “She told him we ran away together to Vegas.  That you left a note.”

“What?  Does he think we got married?  You are just joking, right?  Why did you not tell me all this?”

“No, but he suspects,” he let out a wicked smile, “your note, according to your mom, said that the two of us would be back when we were ready and that we were possibly enrolling in college somewhere.  Your mom is clever.  More clever than you realize!  She knew this day would come.  She just didn’t know what you would choose.  And I didn’t want to worry you.”

He wasn’t joking.  It was so weird to think my mom knew who he was every single time he came over and knew I might be here one day.  And I’d been here too.  And my grandfather was part of the Fey.  And I was a part of the Fey.   Mind boggling!  I was so focused on the weight growing on my shoulders I didn’t seem to notice how close Ian had crept up to my face trapping his hands on my cheeks until his fingertips skimmed across them. 

He kissed me so lightly on the lips I didn’t have time to savor it.  My favorite pouty lip came out.  And I could tell he knew why.
Whoops! 
I need to be more allusive.

“Come on Juliet.  We have business.”

Harrumph!
Does he know how long I have waited for moments like these?
  Yes, he does. 

We kept going.  Caymin and Rion, my two guards, stayed close behind us.  They had names to the faces now.  We’d crossed much of the distance from what Ian had told all of us a few yards back.  Just when it looked like there was another turn in the forest, we came to a waterfall.  A cliff.  If you didn’t know to stop there, you might just plunge to your death.  As if reading my mind, Ian told me, “Pike stays here for the very reason that nothing can just slip up on him.  Enemies would meet their death first.”

I looked down and agreed with Pike’s assessment.   I didn’t see anyone around at all. “Where is everyone or are we not there yet?”

“It is called glamour. All Fey use it to hide from humans.  Humans see what they want to see, remember?”  He touched my arm and I could see creatures everywhere.  Up and down the falls.  In the water.  Under the falls.  Everywhere.

“Why could I not see them before?”  I couldn’t help but think it will be mighty hard to be queen of a people one cannot see.

Once again, as if answering my thoughts he said, “You will now.”  He seemed really bothered by all these things that have not happened to me yet, but he wasn’t talking about it leaving me clueless and completely reliant upon him.  And yet I’d made his brow furrow in a fixed position more often than not.  I’d have to be careful to voice my concerns at the right time.

“And you can touch my arm and make me see?  And alter my feelings, I noticed.”

“You caught that?” he raised his left eyebrow in surprise meeting the other one.  He saw my smile at feeling accomplished with shocking him but frowned suddenly, “A perk for being the son of the Seelie Court’s high ups.”  There was no ego shown in his voice.   He looked sad.

“You don’t want it?”

“No, Grace.  I don’t want any of the things my mother does.  But that’s not for me to decide.  I am a protector.  A fighter.  A guardian.  And yes, calming you is a magic I take comfort in because it comforts you.  I will not apologize for that.”  He admitted his roles that I’d come to see.  He must be desperate to convince me if he is willing to unmask his manhood.  Impure thoughts hit me about his
manhood
being unmasked. My eyes closed, I managed to hide my thoughts from him at least.

“But not hidden from me little lady,” came a firm ladies voice.

Ian gave me a rather heated look to my blush.  “Tell me later,” he whispered. 

Not on my life.

I returned my thoughts to matters at hand.  He’d calmed me at the table the other day when Queen Lazyra had me really shaken. And now he touched me and I could magically see all of these creatures.  What else did I not know about him?  I started to ask, but nodded instead and thought it better in private later or he’d tell me eventually.  “And you said I was able to see through this glamour for a while now.  Glamour is what you meant by my ability to see things for years.  Sometimes my own hidden magic leaked through.  Like strange animals I see in the trees.  They were never animals, were they?”

He nodded.  “Mostly, I let you.  And other ways,” he darkened, “but there were times you did it on your own.  You were born fromFey.  You showed signs of magic as a small child.   They say children are more apt to believe in the unbelievable.  You saw many of the Fey in their true form even as a baby.  Your mind turned them into fairy tales where I couldn’t.”

“Why is that?”  Did I see Ian in his true form then?

“You have been in the human world, Grace!  Your magic will grow.”  His face was gentle, but a bit condescending.  “Come on!  Let’s go, Supergirl!” He guided me on.

A bridge that wasn’t there before was there now with the glamour.  We crossed it in a downward spiral and ended narrowly standing right behind the falls.  Oddly enough, I’d expected it to be very loud but it was as quiet as butterfly wings.  I’d been to this falls before.  It was near Devils Den.  It was weird to think I might have stood here before.   

Ian shook hands with another Fey, I presumed.   They were all part of the Fey, were they not?  He looked like Ian in his stature, but taller by three inches or so and had a combat stealth mode with the all in black look including a black leather jacket in not very cool weather.  He was good looking too.   His skin was tan like he stayed outdoors more than Ian.  His ears mimicked the rest from the court.  He seemed familiar even when he turned giving me hard to read black eyes clouded with secrets.  “We meet again.  Shall I say Princess or
Queen
Grace,” cast a dark, arrogant voice, immediately familiar but not identified. His head tilted to Ian for an answer, but his dark onyx eyes stayed strictly on me.  My nose tickled with something familiar to them.

Ian cleared his throat, “We believe queen, but we are not sure, yet.”

Ian? Nervous?

This dark knight furrowed his brow at me and flicked his eyes back to Ian.  He cracked his knuckles intensely.  I caught Ian’s comment, but didn’t interpret because I was too intent on figuring out this dark menacing boy who glared leaving me a little unsettled.  I knew his face.  Then I watched as Ian drew his own face in as if frightened and barely shook his head signaling some kind of “no” to the guy.  I wasn’t seeing things!  Ian was dislodged by this guy.   The boy moved his eyes to Ian just long enough to look agitated at him for something.  I
certainly didn’t understand. 

The guy moved closer and was standing right in front of me by inching over half a foot.  He didn’t make a move to comment to either of us.  It looked like a standoff, but I was the one facing this guy.  Every girl could recognize testosterone speaking when they saw it.   Ian reached over and touched my arm, almost reluctantly I noticed.  And then the boy I saw was no longer standing there, but Christian, the boy from school who worked at the Burger Giant.  The same boy who’d made eyes at me for weeks, even years and never spoke.  And his wicked grin I recognized just reappeared, but the soft smile I remembered about him never formed.  More like a cocky jerk smile.  I am surrounded by hot Greek god Fey guys who all had the devil’s smile aimed right at me, armed for battle.  I am in so much trouble.

Christian, or Pike or whoever he was looked squarely in my eyes although he’d not taken his eyes off me and said, “Appreciate the compliment.  Glad you noticed.”

Ian jerked his head at me.  At me! 
Aaa!  This...this...this dude can hear me too! 
Something pinched my skin.

What?”  I spun around to Ian.  

“I told you we are everywhere.  This is Pike,” was all he could muster, eyes on Pike.

“
Who
else, Ian?” I asked astonished and a little miffed. 

“Didn’t share all of our secrets, I see,” Pike sneered at Ian.  He was eating up every bit of this.  I’d never really heard his voice for more than a couple of words at one time.  It was a little deeper sounding than I remembered and imagined and had that slow drawn out way that a guy just sounded severely sexy when they spoke.  He rubbed his chin where the five o’clock shadow was beginning to show.  I glared at both of them back and forth and settled back on who I now knew as Pike.  Men!  Sometimes I think they were put here just to distract us from our course in life.

“Funny, that is how I feel about you.”  Mr. Deep Voice responded to my thoughts.

“You will know who soon enough.”  Ian stretched his face out in fear trying hard to end this conversation.  I was far from understanding either of them.

I didn’t understand Ian’s constant anxiety driven face since arriving here, but seeing Christian, now Pike, didn’t help matters I decided and probably fueled the fire.  And I couldn’t fathom that Christian was standing in front of me.  It was starting to bother me.  Well, I’d stay smiling for my own benefit at least, to save face and give neither of them any satisfaction.  What other secrets are there?

Pike just laughed, but it seemed like it was a laugh for more than just my said or not said revelations.  “No time for small talk.  We can get more acquainted later,
Grace
.”  I didn’t like the way he said my name.  It was too sexy like.

He laughed.  I huffed, folding my arms.

As if he had a bad taste in his mouth, “Shall we get started?  Time is being wasted.”