Faery Tales & Nightmares (32 page)

“Not a king,” Seth muttered.

“Right…” Niall laughed. “So tell your subjects to stay or go.”

Heart hammering loudly enough that he suspected most every faery there heard it, he walked over to his parents, who were sitting on a purple and white fauxcowhide-covered sofa his mother had once liked.

I made an ugly sofa
.

His mother and father sat close together, staring silently at him, hands clasped tightly.

“So… those rough weeks? Well… I’ve changed a bit.” Seth touched the fence, and it vanished. “I can explain all of it.”

His father released his mother’s hand and stood. His eyes were wide, but his spine was straight. “You made a sofa and fence appear out of thin air.”

“I did.”

His mother motioned toward the faeries. “They’re not”—Linda’s voice dropped—“
human
, are they?”

“They aren’t.”

“And you?” his father asked in an emotionless voice.

“No, not now,” Seth said evenly.

“Well.” Linda stood. She laughed uneasily. “That’s … new. They’re … new.”

“Actually, they’ve always been around,” Seth said cautiously, “but most mortals can’t see them. I can make it so you always can see them … if you want.”

His father wrapped an arm around his mother. After a tense moment, he nodded. “That seems like a good idea.”

The fears Seth had when he’d considered telling them came rushing back to him.
This was exactly what I didn’t want
. They were awkward, staring at him and unmoving.

His mother stepped away from his father. She took both of Seth’s hands in hers. “Are you happy?”

“I am.”

“Safe?” his father asked in a rough voice.

“Yes.” Seth glanced at the faeries. “Very.”

His parents exchanged a look, and then his father nodded. “Okay then … are they staying or going … wherever they go?”

Startled, Seth looked at his father. “Staying?”

“I only have a few beers, but maybe you can do that thing you just did”—James gestured at the sofa—“and magic up some more refreshments.”

At that, Seth laughed.
That
sounded like the father he remembered, understated and adaptable.

“Can we see what they really look like? Like you did when you looked different?” Linda asked quietly. Her eyes were wide, not in fear but in the same childlike excitement that sent her off on hobby after hobby, fancy after fancy.

“Only if they want,” Seth told her. Then he turned to the assembled faeries and said, “Glamours are optional around my parents.”

They started dropping their glamours, and Seth watched the awe on his parents’ faces as they saw the strange wonder of the less human-looking faeries for the first time. Tears slid down Linda’s cheeks. “They’re beautiful”—she glanced at one very inhuman faery with feline features—“and, well, a little terrifying.”

“Yes.” Seth pulled his mother into a hug and whispered, “Just remember that they are my, um,
subjects
. From here on, they’ll be around, keeping an eye on you, making sure you’re safe.”

Somewhere in the crowd, faeries had started singing, and a few drums were produced. The campfire was joined by several other fires. Seth envisioned drinks and snacks, and his solitary brethren rejoiced together.

His parents danced and laughed, and Seth shook his head. It hadn’t taken them long to get past the initial shock.

“Not bad,” Niall said from behind him.

Seth turned. “What?”

“Your first revelry.” Niall gestured at the faeries who were cavorting in the woods all around them. “Later, though, we probably ought to talk about that little surprise trick of yours. No faery can create reality from nothing … at least none who live outside of Faerie.”

“I didn’t know I could do that,” Seth protested. “Honest.”

The Dark King shook his head, and they stood silently for a few moments. “You’re not going to try to give the role of Dark Court balance to someone else.”

A squeal of laughter made Seth look at the horde.
My horde
. He looked at his parents and then at Niall.
My family
. Seth had more family than he knew what to do with now.

“No,” Seth promised. “This is who I am, what I am. They’re mine to protect.” He looked at the faery who had injured him last week, who’d protected him last year, who was everything Seth was to keep in check. “I don’t abandon those who are mine. You, of all people, ought to know that.”

“Just making sure you remembered it too.” Niall pulled shadows into a chair behind him. “Go celebrate, brother.”

“You could—”

“It’s their first revel with their king-protector,” Niall pointed out gently. “I am not to be out there. Not now.” He pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a long drag, and then grinned. “Anyhow, with this much emotion, I think I’ll just sit here and enjoy.”

“Son?” His mother waved. “The bear over by the fire says you ought to call for more music.”

Smiling, Seth joined his faeries and his mortal parents in the crush. “Another song!”

M
ERELY
M
ORTAL

“I
WANT
THIS
.” KEENAN STARED OUT AT THE
expanse of snow that coated the lawn of the Winter Queen’s house.
Our house. Our
home. Outside of her domain, it was still autumn, but within her immediate area, it was always winter. For most of his nine hundred years, that would have been debilitating to him. Now—because of Donia—he had rediscovered how perfect snow and ice could be.

The Winter Queen came to stand beside him. Without any of the doubts—
maybe a twinge
—that he’d felt with her for decades, he wrapped an arm around her waist. She was the reason for everything he had that was good in his life. During the past few months with her, he’d known a peace and happiness he hadn’t ever experienced. Even if he lived the rest of his life as a human, he was happier than he’d ever been in all of his years as a faery.
All because of Donia
. Unfortunately, the faery who had given him such bliss wasn’t as happy as he was.

“We could stay home,” Donia offered again.

“No. You asked what I wanted.” He turned to face her, studying her expression for some clue as to her mood, as he had been the past few weeks. Her worry over his new humanity had created an unpleasant tension in her, and all Keenan wanted was to erase her worries and fears, and prove to her that they would be happy whether or not he remained merely mortal. “I want to go away with you. Just us.”

“But—”

“Don, it’ll be fine.” He caught her hand and pulled her into his arms. “We’ve never taken a vacation.
Ever
. We’ll go away, spend some time together, talk, relax.”

She exhaled softly, her sigh of cold air muffled by his scarf, and then whispered, “It’s so near winter starting, though.”

“And last month it was too warm. I’m
not
objecting to being here at the house or on the grounds with you, but we have a few days between summer ending and winter beginning. It’s a perfect time to steal away. Let’s take time for
us
.” He leaned back and stared directly into her frost-laden eyes. “The world was nearly frozen for years, and even if things do stay warm a little longer, the mortals won’t object.”

Donia turned away, staring past him as if doing so would hide her worry.

Carefully, even though he couldn’t hurt her with his touch now, Keenan threaded his fingers through her hair until she looked at him again. “Come away with me. Please?”

“Maybe we should take a few guards. Cwenhild says—”

“Cwenhild worries because she saw you when you were … when you almost…” Keenan’s voice faltered at the memory of Donia’s recent brush with death. Nothing had ever terrified him as that injury had.

He kissed her with all of the intensity that the thought of
that
day brought to him. He’d almost lost her.

She was his reason for living; everything that he’d ever dreamed of, perfect in ways that he’d long believed made their relationship impossible. All he had to do now was convince her that whether he remained mortal or tried the admittedly risky routes to regain his faery nature, they
would
be happy.

He felt snow fall around them as she relaxed into the kiss. Big fluffy flakes formed in the air; the brush of each flake was a welcome sensation, proof that she was happy.

Then she leaned away.

“You shouldn’t do that,” he whispered.

“What?”

“Stop kissing me to worry.” He trailed his fingertips along her face and down her throat. “We’ll be fine, and even if we did need the guards, they are only a blink away. You know she’ll send guards trailing after us.” He paused and hid his fear under teasing. “Or is it that have I lost your attention already?”

Donia smiled, as he’d hoped she would, and said, “No. I’m just not as … ridiculously
optimistic
as you are about everything, but that doesn’t mean I’m uninterested.”

He widened his eyes and shook his head, hoping that his flashes of insecurity weren’t as obvious to her as they were to him. Whenever she pulled away, he had the irrational fear that she’d decide his mortal state was reason to give up on the years they could have, that his loss of faery strength and longevity was grounds for sending him away, that his change was going to lead to her rejection. Lightly, he said, “I don’t know. You may have to prove it. There was definite wandering of attention.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “very much so.”

Smiling, she took his hand and led him to their room.

Two hours later, Donia was smiling to herself. She watched as he tossed their bags into the trunk and opened the door to let her wolf, Sasha, into the backseat of the Thunderbird. She gave Keenan another kiss and then climbed into the car. With the sort of laughter she’d enjoyed more and more since he’d moved into her house, he spun the car in a circle in the icy drive and zipped into traffic.

As they left Huntsdale behind them, her fears of all the things that could go wrong—the enemies that could break the now-mortal boy beside her, the fear that her own Winter would slip out and injure him—seemed more manageable. They were together; they were taking a vacation; and they were very obviously being trailed by the Winter Court guards.

I could tell him that I asked Cwenhild to send guards. I could tell him that his mortal fragility terrifies me … but that would lead to talking about his foolish plan to risk taking Winter inside his skin
. He hadn’t brought it up in the past few days, but he would do so again. He had latched on to the idea that he could lift the Winter Queen’s staff, much as she had all of those years ago, and that in doing so, Winter would fill him. He’d even reasoned that it might be painless because he was fey until recently. He discounted the risks: that it would hurt him, kill him. He wasn’t any more willing to bow under impossible odds than he had been when he was a bound faery king.
Or when I was dying
.

Donia had tears in her eyes as she looked over at Keenan. He didn’t take his attention from the road but still unerringly reached out and twined their fingers together.

If he knew how much becoming fey could hurt, would he still want to try
?

If he knew what it felt like to take ice inside a human body, would he want to try
?

Would
I
have decided to risk it if I had known
?

“Don?” He squeezed her hand. “It’ll be fine. Whatever it is, it’ll be fine.”

“You’re…” She let her words drift away with a cloud of frosty air.

“Relax, please.” He glanced over at her. “Next week we can deal with whatever you’re worried about. Right now, I just want to be together, have a holiday with the faery I love.” He smiled before chiding her, “Remember: you already agreed. Faeries don’t lie.”

“I did agree.” She smiled even as the reminder of faery rules—of the fact that
she
was fey while he was not—made her want to weep.
Faeries
might not lie, but he wasn’t a faery now. He’d given that up to save her life.

She angled her body so that she was staring at him. “And I
am
enjoying the scenery.”