Reign Fall (8 page)

Michael stood there waiting, watching my reaction to the beauty before me. My heart did a flip-flop at seeing him again, but I still hesitated a bit after what my father and I had discussed. I had to watch him carefully and see if he was different. I’d do whatever I had to in order to protect him from nasty Queen Sephina.

“You like?” he asked.

I nodded, still shocked. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

“I’ve wanted to show you this place for a while, but whenever you’ve been here you haven’t stayed very long.”

“You come out here a lot?”

He nodded. “Frequently. It’s my job to look after the garden.” That almost made me smile. He was a gardener. And, by the looks of those flowers, an incredible one. My gaze moved upward and widened. “Wait a minute. The sky is
blue
. What happened to the storm clouds of misery?”

He looked up. “It’s magic. The sky is the same as before, but this gives the illusion of a bright summer’s day.”

“It’s amazing. All of it.” I couldn’t stop staring at the sky. Bright blue, but no sun. My father had once told me that he hadn’t seen sunlight in over sixteen years. I guess fake sky didn’t count.

Still, it sure was convincing.

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked with concern. “Did you have a difficult conversation with your father?”

The look on my face must still have been bleak from before, despite being surrounded by all this unexpected beauty—and Michael was rather beautiful himself.

“No. I mean...yes. Of course. We never seem to see exactly eye to eye on a lot of things”—
to
say the least
—“but that’s not why I’m feeling shaken right now.” He drew closer to me. “Then what is it?”

While something kept stopping me from sharing my scary “evil Michael” dream with him, I did tell him about meeting the boy in the hallway and our strange conversation. Then I showed Michael the rock he’d given to me before slipping it into my pocket for safekeeping.

“Who was he?” I asked, worried.

He frowned deeply during my story, especially at the part where I told him the kid could read everybody’s minds—even his. “I wish I could tell you. I’ve never seen anyone like that before.

And you’re trying to tell me that he’s been here for years? That he’s been able to observe the king all that time—and read his mind?”

“It sounds crazy, I know. But I swear it’s true. He was there, talking to me, giving me that rock, and then,
poof
, he was gone.”

Michael looked disturbed by this. That made two of us. “No one is permitted to enter the castle without King Desmond’s permission. He’s in control of everything here. He would sense an unknown and unwelcome presence if one existed. The walls of the castle are magically enforced to help him do this.”

I paced to the willow tree and back, worry churning in my gut. “Then who did I just talk to in there?”

His dark brows were tightly drawn together. “I honestly don’t know. But are you okay?”

“Okay? Yeah, I’m fine. But I—I might be going completely crazy if I’m seeing people that don’t exist.” I began to shiver and it wasn’t long before Michael moved closer to me. Without thinking twice about it, I hugged him hard for moral support. He hugged me back.

It felt really good and more than a simple hug of comfort. He smelled like freshly cut grass and warm spice. My arms tightened around him. I never wanted to let go.

“Princess, your father seems to be observing our training session from the balcony.” I reluctantly pulled back from Michael and glanced over his shoulder at the spot where my father stood, leaning over the stone railing.

“Don’t worry, we’re not making out yet!” I called up to him. “That was just an innocent hug!” I probably shouldn’t have, but I honestly couldn’t resist.

My father gave me a very stern look and his shoulders tensed, but he didn’t respond. I almost laughed out loud.

I glanced at Michael. He didn’t look amused.

“Sorry,” I said. “Private joke.”

“Yes, hilarious. That is, if you want me banished from here forever.”

“He won’t banish you.” Not yet, anyway. Not unless there was something seriously wrong with the Shadow in front of me. And it was up to me to determine if there was. If killing Jonas had done something bad to him deep down, then I had to figure out what it was and how to help him get back to normal as soon as possible.

Michael kept his attention on my father. “I’ll tell the king about what you saw. There has to be an explanation for it.”

“A ghost?”

“Ghosts don’t exist.”

“Hooray. Finally something that doesn’t exist.” I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved about that. “After dealing with demons, dragons, and faeries lately, I wasn’t positive anymore.” Michael headed up the stairs and emerged on the balcony a minute later where he spoke to my father. The king glanced down at me again, a frown creasing his brow.

He was always frowning. I tried to remember if I’d ever heard him laugh. It disturbed me that I couldn’t recall a single time.

I bet he’d laughed when he and my mother were together.

Come on, Nikki,
I told myself.
Let it go once and for all, will you?

I was making both myself and my father miserable the longer I dwelled on this subject.

Besides, my mother had moved on when he disappeared. Most recently, she’d moved on with Mr. Crane.

At least, I thought she had. He actually hadn’t been around the house since Christmas dinner.

And they hadn’t spent that much time together since they first started dating. A few dinners out.

A couple at our house. I’d felt obligated to buy him a Christmas gift, which was totally awkward.

I got him a book—a legal thriller. He seemed happy with it. He gave me a gift card to the mall. I was happy with that.

Same old, same old. I just couldn’t summon up any enthusiasm for my mother’s continuing quest for true romance. Maybe, now that she’d thrown her time and attention into writing her latest book and stopped being quite so social, neither could she.

But that didn’t mean anything when it came to my father. Even if he did suddenly show up at her door with three dozen roses, she’d never speak to him again after he left her all by herself all those years ago.

But wait,
a little voice piped up inside me.
She doesn’t know what really happened. He didn’t
abandon her at all, did he? He had no choice. And he thought she was dead, or he would have
done anything to find her again.

“Stop it, little voice,” I whispered to myself. “You’re not very helpful right now.” Not helpful, maybe. But it spoke the truth.

A few minutes later, Michael returned. My father wasn’t on the balcony anymore.

“Well?” I asked, anxious for some real answers.

“King Desmond agrees that there couldn’t be someone who is physically here in the castle.

It’s impossible. But someone might have astrally projected himself here to spy on him. It’s not likely, but he’s looking into the wards around the castle to see if there’s a malfunction in the primary magic.”

I stared at him. “I didn’t understand a word you just said. Astrally, what? Primary magic wards, huh?”

He grinned. “Let’s just say, there’s nothing to worry about. Whatever happened before won’t happen again.”

While I did prefer not worrying, this didn’t exactly ease my mind. I’d seen that boy and he’d even given me something tangible to prove his existence—the black rock. He knew things from reading minds—Michael’s, my father’s. He could read
my
mind, too. Unless I was the one going crazy, something was really strange here and I wished I could figure out what it was.

I suddenly felt like punching something.

“Are we going to start practice, or what?” I asked. “Tick tock. Got to be back fairly soon or my mother is going to send out a search party for me.” Michael grabbed a plastic shopping bag from behind a tree. “First you need to change clothes.”

I took the bag and looked at it. It was from the Erin Heights Town Center. “You bought me clothes? At the mall?”

He shrugged. “I tried my best. Trust me, they’re adequate for this. If you’re going to shift form right now, I didn’t think you’d want to ruin what you have on.” I didn’t know why the thought of shifting form in order to train hadn’t occurred to me. I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it.

“You’re right,” I finally said.

He nodded and crossed his arms, his lips curving. “To quote you, Princess.
Tick tock
.”

“You’re strict, coach.”

He gave me a mischievous look. “Oh, you have no idea.” I ran into the castle and quickly changed into what was in the bag. Shorts like what I’d wear in gym class and...a halter top. It wasn’t what I’d call a perfect fit, but it was comfortable enough.

I was pretty sure I knew why he’d chosen a halter top that tied behind my neck and left the majority of my back bare. It wasn’t just so I could look cute.

One word:
wings.

I ran back out to the courtyard, and Michael swept his gaze over me in an assessing manner. I now wore way fewer clothes than before. I looked perfectly dressed for the beach, not for January in Erin Heights.

After his gaze moved over my bare skin, his eyes seemed to darken slightly as they locked with mine. “You look good.”

A shiver went through me and it was hard to breathe for a second. “Thanks.” He finally tore his attention away from me. “Let’s begin. There are three main components to being a Darkling—which is just like being a demon, powers-wise. You can shift your form.

Darklings remain half-human in appearance, though.”

I tapped my foot. “I know this already, coach.”

“Secondly, you have strength and speed, which can be practiced and assessed. Thirdly, you have the ability to manifest energy and use it as a weapon.”

“Fourthly,” I said, “flying, which I can do because I have really cool wings.”

“Sorry to break this to you, Princess, but unlike dragons, most demons actually
can’t
fly.” I deflated a little. “Most demons isn’t
all
demons. I could be one that
can
.”

“Baby steps. The potential of taking flight will not be our first lesson.”

“You read all this in books?”

He shrugged. “I’ve lived around demons all my life. I’ve observed what they can do. But, yeah, I’ve been reading a lot the last couple of weeks. King Desmond has a lot of books in the castle library I can read whenever I like.”

Maybe I’d been too hard on my father where Michael was concerned. From him getting to spend time in this beautiful courtyard, having the pick of anything from the library to gain knowledge, and my father’s concern about Michael’s current well-being and state of mind, it wasn’t as if he was a slave who spent most of his time chained up in the dungeon.

And if my father really thought there was a problem with Michael’s inner darkness, then that would be a very good justification not to let him travel between worlds.

There were two sides to every story. Sometimes it was difficult to see both right away.

“So, you can shift form now,” Michael said as he crossed his arms.

I tensed. “Just like that? You think it’s that easy, do you?”

“I know it’s normally happened when you’ve felt a surge of emotion—panic, fear, anger. But I think you can do it whenever you like. Thus, the practicing. And remember that if you concentrate on your dragon’s tear bracelet it will help focus your energy.” I couldn’t help but smile at him. “You’re kind of a natural at this instructor thing.”

“You think?”

I nodded. “I feel inspired to give it a shot, even knowing that it’s going to hurt like hell to change back.”

His brows drew together as if he was disturbed at the thought of me being in pain. “I’ve asked the other demon servants here in the castle if shifting form hurts and they said it only did in the beginning.”

I’d been watching him carefully ever since I came out here, and I couldn’t see any sign that he was any different than he’d ever been before. I wasn’t ready yet to relax, though. I needed to find out the truth. I took a couple steps closer to him. “How are you feeling, Michael?” He looked at me curiously. “Feeling?”

I shielded my eyes from the fake brightness out here. “We haven’t had any time to talk about what happened. With...Jonas.” I wasn’t going to tell him what my father feared or what he’d asked me to do, but there was no reason for me not to approach this problem head-on. It might save us all some valuable time.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

“You don’t?” That was troubling. I dug my toe into the grass. “Why not?”

“Because you haven’t shifted form yet.” He gave me a sly smile. “You do something for me and I might feel a bit more talkative.”

“That’s not fair.”

He shrugged. “I’m the coach here. My rules.”

“I think you’re enjoying this a bit too much.”

“And you, Princess, are trying to delay.”

“Fine.” I shut my eyes and tried to concentrate on shifting form without being angry or scared first. I did this for about five minutes and nothing interesting happened. I opened one eye.

Michael raised an eyebrow. “Tick tock, Princess.”

“I know! I’m trying, okay?” I glared at him, then I squeezed my eyes shut again and tried harder. I inhaled the scent of green grass and flowers—and the distractingly amazing one of Michael himself—as I summoned that part of me that was very new, but also very familiar.

Come on
,
I can do this. It doesn’t control me, I control it.

I felt a burning and tingling on the side of my head. And then a single pop.

“Well done,” Michael said. “That’s one horn.
Only
one horn. Keep going.” I clenched my fists. I didn’t want to be stuck with only one horn. I would look like a lopsided unicorn, and that would be very embarrassing.

I concentrated even harder this time, focusing all of my energy and trying to summon my Darkling powers until I felt a pop on the other side of my head. The energy crackled through me and the more I focused on the dragon’s tear, the easier it was. I felt my body begin to change—