The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) (8 page)

Galeta’s laughter was terrible. “You just keep on telling yourself that, darkness. Now come, you’ve still yet to master the killing curse.”

Calypso

T
wirling, Calypso eyed her mate.

Hades—who sat on a burnished mahogany leather tufted sofa before his massive, flame-lit hearth—slowly set down his reading papers and gave her a raised eyebrow in question.

Caly’s heart flipped. Even now, after so many lifetimes together she adored her male. With his dark hair, olive toned skin, and mysterious eyes full of brimstone and madness he was her perfect match in every way.

He also knew her inside and out.

“My jewel?” he asked, in that deep sonorous voice of his that never failed to make her skin tingle. She might have jumped his bones just now if she wasn’t so sick to her stomach.

Clenching onto her middle, she worried her bottom lip.

Calypso was never one to find herself tongue-tied, a fact that he knew well. Shooting to his feet, he marched toward her, the echoes of his shoes on the slate-gray marble floor of his mansion in the Underworld reverberated like cannon fire in her ears.

Reaching her side just a second later, he gripped her biceps and squeezed gently. “My love, you’re worrying me, what is the matter?”

His gaze was searching.

Wetting her lips, knowing she needed to set his mind at ease, she shook her head. “It is...nothing. I don’t know.”

He looked shocked. “You don’t know? Since when don’t you know something, my heart?”

His grin was crooked, and she couldn’t help but respond. Calypso loved her bubble butt, but right now sex and mating and flogging the blowhole were the very last thoughts on her mind.

Releasing a heavy sigh, she sagged into his comforting hold, running her fingers lightly up and down his spine to help soothe her own ragged nerves. “The truth is, Hades, I’m worried about Fable. And I have been for some time now.”

Hades might not be her grandfather by blood, but he was definitely her grandfather by soul. His entire frame bristled at the notion of anything amiss with his beloved granddaughter.

And suddenly even the underworld itself seemed to go cold with his displeasure. The wails of the trapped souls floating within the River Styx echoed down the great halls mournfully as all of hell grew aware of their master’s discontent.

Patting his hair back down into place, Caly nibbled on her bottom lip. She hadn’t told Hades of her feelings because she’d not wanted to distress him unnecessarily.

In fact, for several months after the girl’s nuptials to the handsomely aloof King George, Caly had thought her granddaughter deliriously happy and in love and thus why she’d made such little effort at reaching out to her clan.

Why when Hades and Caly had finally sealed the deal they’d rarely left her chambers for several decades straight—and only when forced to.

“What is the matter with Fable?” he growled, and in his anger, his face took on the hue and appearance of his other face. His true visage.

That of death incarnate.

His gorgeous features became more harsh and razor sculpted and a glow of crimson curled through his dark eyes.

Planting her hand on his chest, she rubbed a soothing circle, to ease the now rapid beating of his heart.

Shaking her head, and causing her octopi tentacle hair to undulate like a wave, she took a deep breath.

“Probably nothing, my love. You know how I am prone to worry when my family is involved.”

But there was no pacifying the beast now. As she’d said, Hades knew her dark soul as well as he knew his and Caly was beyond anxious right now.

The flames in the hearth raged like a wildfire, leaving black markings behind on the ten-foot-thick river stone that lined it.

“Calypso,” he growled a warning, letting her know that he wouldn’t allow her to try and lessen the significance of what was going on.

Knowing that if she didn’t stop him now, he’d tear down the worlds to get at his granddaughter and make sure for himself that she was safe, Calypso forced a lighthearted laugh to spill off her tongue.

“The truth is, my darling, that I really don’t know. It could be nothing.” She rolled her wrist airly, keeping her tone light and carefree.

His eyes thinned, but the walls of the castle still stood, so her prime piece of man meat wasn’t totally losing his head just yet.

Most of the world believed it to be Zeus and not Hades who wielded all the power in Olympus, but the truth of it was their powers were equal and should the brothers choose to war very little could survive them.

“Then tell me now what is going on?” he demanded.

And normally, Calypso would bristle to hear his high-handed manner, but she also knew her spouse well, and Hades’ sharp tongue was more a sign of his fear rather than of anger.

Exhaling, she forced herself to finally speak her worries. “For some time now I’ve wondered why it was that Fable hasn’t reached out to any of us. Not her parents, us, not even Hook—who we both know she’s terribly fond of.”

Hades’ eyes narrowed, but he remained silent. This was his thinker’s pose, he was ingesting everything she said and would mull it over before giving his final thoughts.

“Of course, she is a newlywed, obviously. So I was content to merely sit back and relax and think no more of this.”

“Then what is the problem now?” he asked, and his voice now sounded much less animalistic and more thoughtful and contemplative.

Even the fire in the hearth had settled down, and the flames in his eyes were mostly extinguished. Though the sharp bones and lines of his face hadn’t smoothed out yet.

Laying a loving hand upon a slashing cheekbone, she gave him a soft smile. “The problem is I worry, my dear.”

Calypso wasn’t sure whether she should tell him the next part because now that she thought about it, she felt silly and foolish for jumping to conclusions. The only problem was she’d always considered herself to be a good judge of character and situations, and though there seemed to be a rational explanation for all of this, her brain continued to nag at her that all wasn’t quite right.

He tenderly kissed the meat of her palm, nibbling on it just slightly, enough to make her hiss and tremble with an immediate wash of need.

Calypso’s emotions were as temperamental as her seas—flighty, would be one way of putting it, and yet she’d never once grown bored with her male and truthfully doubted that she ever would.

He grinned a wicked grin, and she couldn’t help but mimic it.

“So this is simply a case of nerves then? Is that all, my love?” He stepped in close, so close the heat of his body washed against her own, making her primordial form of glass-like water tremble.

Her thighs shook, and her insides quaked with a tsunami of desire. Talking to Hades and being able to think matters through was doing a miraculous job of easing her worries.

In all likelihood, she probably really was suffering from a case of empty nest. To be gone so many months without a word or a letter was unusual for Fable, but her granddaughter was part god. She had powerful magick to her. Powerful enough that nothing and no one could harm her.

Hades curled her octopi tentacle around his wrist, bringing her face scant inches from his so that she felt the roll of his minty breath linger along her lips like a delicate kiss.

“My, dear, sweet Calypso, the primordial goddess of great passions and power, brought low by the thought of our beautiful little granddaughter.”

He said the words with an echo of great fondness and love and she couldn’t help but snicker, feeling suddenly silly and foolish for worrying so.

“I do love you, woman,” he said in a thick, raspy burr full of heat and longing.

Caly had forgotten to mention to him that when she’d attempted to get in touch with Fable this afternoon by sea orb, the image inside of it had been nothing but blackness.

Someone—and no doubt it could only be Fable since you’d have to be a powerful magick wielder—had blocked the sea orb’s access.

In all likelihood, her precious darkness was busy corrupting the mind of her gallant King and did not wish to be disturbed by her meddling family of gods.

Hades palm cupped her breast, hefting it in his palm and Caly could not help but gasp her pleasure as her fingers curled into his jacket.

The length of his cock suddenly poked her hard in the thigh, and Caly knew her devil of a husband had much pleasanter ideas on his mind.

“Mmm,” she moaned incoherently, and he smirked.

“Give her a few more days, love, if we do not hear from her then, I shall send one of my spies to seek her out just to assure you that our little granddaughter is fine and is no doubt desperate to do with her male as I now wish to do to you.”

The husky tenor of his voice nearly made Calypso come. Her gown spun of colorful beta fish swirled around her trim body as they too responded to the heat in the Lord of the Underworld’s voice.

“Okay?” he asked her.

And she nodded with a gulp when he flicked his wrist, using his own power to rid her of her gown so that she stood gloriously nude beneath his sharp and predatory gaze.

He was like a ravenous wolf ready to pounce, and she couldn’t wait.

“It’s a deal, my love,” she said in a husky voice herself, then wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers, “now about those carrots...”

~*~

Fable

I
t had been two days since Brunhilda had come to threaten Fable. And in those two days, George hadn’t come to visit once.

Which she was beyond grateful for. Maybe it was to “teach” Fable a lesson or simply that George was sick of slacking his lust on his “bride,” and not one of his whores.

Rumors reached her ears even here of another dark-haired beauty now laying claim to his time and smiles. Her skin was said to be dusky and her eyes green, but Snow said the woman was nowhere near as pretty as Fable.

Not that Fable cared.

George could spill his speed in a cow if he wished to, just so long as she no longer had to suffer it.

The sun was still several hours away from rising, and Galeta had left her only three or so hours ago, but she couldn’t sleep.

For days, Fable had practiced that killing curse and finally could say that she’d mastered it. She had no intention of using such a curse, but there was another one she’d like to look at.

“
Ignis
,” she intoned, flipping her palm over and immediately a hard curl took the corners of her lips as she gazed transfixed at the fireball glowing on her palm.

Blood tingling with a rush of raw power, she knew that she was so close to the end of this nightmare that she could practically taste it. The anticipation of the end, it lingered on her tongue like the sweetest aroma.

Only a few more weeks, enough time to make sure she was stronger than Brunhilda, to break the cuff on her wrist and then she
would
free herself. Herself and Snow. She’d return to Seren, to father, and she’d never leave again.

They’d be safe and sound and never again have to worry about the wolves that lived and breathed in this wretched, horrible world called the above.

She might even find a new love someday.

“My queen,” Mirror hissed urgently, “someone comes!”

She frowned, as immediately his mirror went dark. So lost in her head and her future plans that she’d forgotten to quell the flame in her palm when her door was suddenly slammed open, and there stood the king, the dowager, Charles, and a handful of royal guards.

Too terrified to make a sound, she held as still as field mice scenting danger, staring at the lot of them wide-eyed and disbelievingly.

Brunhilda wore a cruel smirk. George stood beside her looking bored. It was Charles’s look, which finally caused the numbness in her brain to scatter.

His look was one of tortured regret.

“Charles?” she whispered, but the lead knight turned his face to the side and refused to look at her.

Brunhilda pointed a finger at her. “There, a witch. I told you! Burn her at the stake.”

“Wait! What?” Fable jumped to her feet, finally quenching the magick, and clutched onto the edges of her robe with nerveless fingers, shaking her head. “What are you going on about? George, what is this?”

His lip curled into a look of disgust. “I will not harbor a witch in my presence. Behead it and burn it at the stake.”

Jaw dropping; Fable couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Or seeing.

Suddenly everything was moving too fast to process. The guards came pouring through her door, surrounding her in a circle. Their faces sharp, angry, and cold.

Charles led the pack, and he looked anguished and terrified. For her.

Blinking, trying to piece the fragments of this mad puzzle together, she backed up, until her back pressed against the stone wall and she could go no further.

Nothing made any sense. Why were they in her room? Why was Brunhilda calling her a witch as though it were a bad thing when the dowager queen was one herself? None of this made any sense.

“What is this!” she cried again, tongue feeling swollen and thick, throat too tight with fear so that it was hard to breathe.

Brunhilda wore a lecherous grin as she said, “We do not harbor witches in the Enchanted Forest. Do you not know your own tales, Darkness?”

Blinking, unable to believe this could really be happening, she shook her head. Mouth flopping open and shut like a dying fish on land. “But...but...”

Tossing her head back, the witch cackled, the sounds of which seemed to echo like madness through the rafters.

Why was everyone standing around looking at Fable as though she were the villain? Couldn’t they sense the madness, the evil in the dowager? Or did they simply not care?

“You were supposed to give him an heir. Instead, you turned yourself sterile, you think I don’t know. You reek of dark magick, the little fairy told us everything, do not think to lie to me again,” she said it with far too much pleasure in her voice.

The little fairy?

There could only be one.

Fable’s heart sank like a rock to her knees.