Deception (32 page)

I hurried back through the garden and slowed my pace when I found the entrance to the campfire.  When I rounded the corner, I stopped abruptly to search for him at the fire that was burning bright and jumped when popping embers jumped up in front of me.  He wasn’t there.  I looked all around and heard him chuckle in the darkness. 

“I know you’re here.  Where are you?” I cooed with my hand to my mouth to muffle the sound.  I didn’t want to surprise the wrong person.

“Right here!”  He quietly pulled his words through the air purposely sounding sneaky.

I let my eyes get accustomed to the darkness following the direction of his voice.  I looked over to the left when I saw the slightest movement suspended in the night air.  It was a trampoline.  THE trampoline! 

“Would you join me?”  With one elbow leaning on his side he was wiggling his finger in my direction with that awe inspiring-drop your mouth I’m a super hot guy with a pouty lip-look.  He patted the space in front of him on the center of the netting where a single red, not green, rose sat in honor of our trampoline nights.  My heart beat double time.

I slowed my pace a little remembering he knew I knew about the ring and Danella.  This was his way of telling me another way that he has a plan and he was in control.  He knew what he was doing all along.  It was a little alarming to reach this conclusion so often with him, but prior to finding this new person I was becoming, caution was my middle name. I’ve faced my worst enemy in both worlds and survived. Now, a bold and more daring me had come.  Angel, zero.  Devil, one!  Hello Braveheart!

Before I climbed up, I wanted to be still enough to ask him about his many gifts. “You knew all along.  Why did you get the ring so long ago?”

He didn’t stir.  “I had to have hope.  I needed something to remind me that keeping silent and not telling you anything would keep you safe and bring you to me one day.”  He patted the mat again where he intended for me to lie down. 

What if I’d chosen the other way?  No what ifs!  My heart broke for him just a little.  He really loves me that much.  Has anyone ever been loved so much by another, I couldn't imagine.

I climbed up using his hand and rested right where I used to for years, but a little closer than I’d ever touched him before down the length of his body.  He slid his arm out for me to rest my head on.  I slid in letting him surround me and figuring this would be something easy to get used to.

“How much did she tell you?”

“Don’t you know, Mr. Mystery?”

He just smiled largely pleased with himself.  “More than enough! Quite the serendipity, she is.  Miss Dan…” I watched him as I announced this discovery.  “Is very overprotective, even now.  At least, I know you’ll still have surprises on our wedding night.”  That didn’t come out the way I planned.  His eyes were wide before forming a sly look as his smile turned into a devilish grin.

I stuttered, “I-I just mean that you never watched me sleep.  She was the dragon lord over my bedroom.”

He didn’t embarrass me further.  “Yes, she was that!”

“You tried?” my face was horrified.

“No, I mean, I would have loved to, don’t get me wrong, but that’s not what I am.  I’m still a male, my love, but I could never do anything that would hurt you.  I was close by though.”

“Oh!”                This is truly awkward
.

“What about this wedding night.  Am I invited?” his voice sounded deeper than usual interrupting my thoughts.

I slapped his chest playfully.  “You!” 

His voice started to crack and he cleared his throat, “The day Kinsler tried to take you at the picnic bench...”

I nodded, not wanting to cause him unnecessary pain.  From smooth talker to choked up in a millisecond.

“…when I almost lost you.”

I waited patiently, closing my eyes.  I knew I should be thinking about all I’d left behind in my human world, but his face was all I could see when I closed my eyes.  Tunnel vision.

“I knew that day I wasn’t just your guardian.  I wanted more.  I knew that day, I loved you.  I couldn’t lose you.  I’m sorry I wasn’t there.  And when you talked in your sleep telling me it wasn’t in vain, my world changed.  Th idea of keeping you forever became almost an obessession.”

He apologized too much.  I put a quick peck on his cheek which worked because realized that I too needed a distraction from the heavy.  He reached behind him and pulled out a little silver metal box.

“Surprise!” 

“What is this?”  I turned it over and over.  Something rattled around inside.

“Not as good as your mom’s but I tried my best.”

Mom?  Tried his best?  “Open it!” he insisted.

I pulled!   No go!

He pulled it open and handed it to me.

I peeked in a little slit I created and popped my face back as if something might jump out.  “Cookies?”  I watched his face.  “You made them?”

He didn’t respond.

I bit into one and handed another to him.  I closed my eyes to taste it not sure what to expect.  A long, embarrassing moan escaped my mouth before I could stop it.

“That good, huh?”  Even in the dark his eyebrow rose.

“Better than awesome.  You made these?”  I finished off the first one and reached for another.

“So shocked?”

“Well, yeah.  A little.  These are better than my mom’s.” 

“Really?”

“No fairy magic involved?” I asked.

He looked hurt, “No, I didn’t cheat or drug you or anything else.”

“No, I didn’t mean that or that or
anything
else. I meant the ingredients.”

“Oh!  No, those either, I don’t think.”

I rewarded him with a sleepy smile.  I had once thought life itself was too complicated, and the people around it, but now everything just seemed to fall in place. 

“Happy late Birthday!”  He waved his hand across the trampoline.

“But this was already mine.” I waved my hand around to the trampoline circled base mimicking him.

“And now it’s our own private retreat.”

I let the moment settle for a minute of two.  

“Ian.”

“Hmm!”

“Was that the surprise you said wasn’t ready yet?  Cookies?”

“No.  But I had help with the cookies more than I let on.  Danella did a lot of it.”  I snickered at his honesty.  “Only giving credit where credit is due.  There is something being made just for you.  It is not ready yet and has to be perfect before I can give it to you.   But that’s all I will tell you and you can’t ask again for fear of secrets pouring from my bedazzled head.”

“Bedazzled?”             

“What else could you call it?  You make me act like a crazy fool sometimes.”

“Is that bad?”

“Sometimes, yes.  Bad for me personally, not in the least.”

“Have you ever heard the phrase ‘a person’s eyes are the windows to their soul’?”

“Yes!”

“And both of our eyes are emeralds, as you say.”  I looked almost wistful for a moment.

He chuckled, “Yeah!”

“Then what does that say about us?  Your mother’s were yellow.  Your eyes are green.  You said once that the eyes tell about the person they are.  So what does that say about me, or us?”

He thought long while I took the time to enjoy watching him.

“Color isn't anything to do with it.  I could be color blind and still see inside your soul, you release it so freely."  He paused to think then said, "I think that my mother’s eyes showed how empty inside she was.   I don’t know about mine, but I’ve already assessed what yours possess.”

“You have?”

He only smiled, “Your flare for truth and compassion drive you.  You want to see the best in everyone, yet you make them face their own choices.  I admire you in that.”

I listened carefully searching his words to see if they matched my own.  “That’s funny!”

“What is?” he turned moving himself slightly more close to my face.

“That’s just what I’d say about you, but with protector labeled on top.  Maybe we are a perfect match and our eyes show it.  Like I can see inside your soul and you in mine.”

“We were matched before
WE
existed.  We just had to have lots and lots of patience.”   He sighed heavily.

“Being patient is hard sometimes?” I summoned courage to say.

“You have no idea!” His eyes were wide staring up at the inky black mass of glowing stars. 

“What does that mean?” I elbowed him.  Aside from the lack of physical contact we both needed so badly, I assumed he meant something I’d done wrong. .

“I’ve waited over a hundred years for you.”

I thought of something worse.  “And you never loved another?” 

“No!  Fey women aren’t known for their compassion.  That’s why your light shines so bright to me.  Others see it to.”  He pulled closer still.  “And you are
mine
.  No one else can have you.”  He enunciated slowly.

“I don’t want anyone else.”

“I know!  And that scares most Fey men.  That you could show that much love for one.”                              “That’s strange!”  I still didn’t know how to handle the whole ‘I’m in love with the Seelie court prince and now they want me, Grace Starmen, to be queen, marry their prince, put a stopper on the Nym invasion, get a grip on my mojo and these new skills, and still continue to know on the inside I’m just a screaming, just past teenage years scared girl who wants to cry but can’t when anyone is looking.  I am dying to read one of my favorite novels, longing to plant even one tree, and wanting to be held by my mom just one more time kind of girl.’

“No, you’ll see with time.”

“I miss my mom. And I know she knows.  And always did.  And protected me.  But finding the strength, I'll never know.”

“Your mom is an amazingly brave and patient woman.  I know exactly where you get it from.”

“I’m not brave,” I scoffed.   At least not really.  In my mind, yes, but not in the real world.

“You are braver than any woman I’ve known.”

“How?”   He called me a woman! 

“You came with me that fateful night.”  He held up a finger.  And then another, “You fought me…” he chuckled. 

“That doesn’t count.”

“You went where my mother never tried.” 

I haven’t thought of that.

Finger number three went up.  “You stood up to Kinsler, your worst enemy and tormentor.”

Well, yeah!  Go on!  Feeling so awesome right about now.

Finger number four opened and closed over my heart.  “You gave me your heart.”

Yet neither of us chose this destiny. “Did I really choose this or did the prophecy make me?  I mean, do I have free will here or is there some magic making me bound to all this,” I waved my hands, “court of the Fey and…everything?Because the real truth is, if I don't have you, I don't want the rest.”  I felt I was making it too light of a subject than I meant.  Loving him seemed the greatest gift.

“You chose.  Remember when I revealed my true nature?” he watched me.  I nodded rubbing my arms with his fingertips.  “You could’ve turned and run, and I would have erased your memory of who I really was.  You had an obsession with what is normal and not and redefined it daily.  And yet somehow, you knew.”

“I would’ve never known you?”  Normal is overrated.

“You would have the memories of our friendship.”

“That’s why you were always just a friend?”

“That long and deep of a relationship cannot be erased, Grace.  If I’d been more to you, you’d remember it either way.  And the other court, as well as mine, wouldn’t allow that, for fear of a compromise on our existence.  Others have lost the link to the Fey world because of it.”

“Oh!  Where are they sent?”

“They lose the elongated lifespan, become human. Usually they are sent to the human world and their memories are of a human life only.”

“Oh!”

“So you chose, and I chose when I claimed you, just not when I thought I did, but later.”

I blushed at the memory, whether he could see it in the dim light was irrelevant.  He knew my face well enough by now, I couldn’t hide it. 

“But I couldn’t leave now, right?”

His face went all tight, “No, why?  You’re bound, and…”

I squeezed his arm.  That made me shiver all over.  Going philosophical usually calmed what fears I seem to cause.  Humor.    “I’m not having second thoughts Ian, just trying to understand the semantics of how this all works.  I mean, I am a perfectly far from a normal civilized being who needs her man to know I am dealing with this, but it’s astronomically hard to fathom even still.”

His face softened.

It seemed inevitable that something bad was bound to happen.  Everything was just to perfect.  I told myself to put those thoughts away but things have a way of resurfacing.  “If the Fey believe the never forget a debt rule, how many am I up to now?”  I wondered seriously how he’d answer even though I was trying to lighten the conversation.