The Unseelie King (The Kings Book 6) (13 page)

It was her name. Her
true
name.

Gods help me,
he thought, his senses thunderstruck and scattered.
It’s so beautiful
.

It was perfect.

Caliban slowly lowered his head as he floated down from that ragged ledge of impossible ecstasy. His body shuddered, spent and strange. He felt different now, as he never had before.

He blinked his eyes open and gazed down at his queen. His heart did a flip in his chest and settled into an erratic rhythm. She gazed up at him as well, with a blue-white heat – the hottest kind of fire of all – in flames that otherwise mirrored his own.

Caliban felt his magic ebb and flow around them, mingling with hers like water colors on a wet canvas. They were one in the truest sense now. He had absorbed her power – and she, his.

“I…” her voice was scratchy from screaming, and she smiled winsomely as she cleared her throat and tried again. Her fingertips brushed a lock of his hair from his forehead. The gentlest touch.

“I think… I know your name,” she said hesitantly.

He smiled as something filled his chest, something he didn’t recognize but that he desperately wanted to keep feeling for the rest of his days. “And I, yours.”

She blinked, briefly shutting out that blue-white fire, before her smile became hopeful and small, and the flames flickered lazily. “Keep it a secret?” she asked.

That strange sensation that had been entering his chest suddenly
exploded
inside of him, expanding to the farthest reaches of his soul, filling up every shadow and replacing it with hope. He knew what it was now. And he knew he would die a thousand deaths at the hands of the most terrible evils before he let that feeling go.

He would never let her name be heard aloud. It was his to protect forever.

“
Always
.”

Chapter Nineteen

Lalura lifted her head from her knitting and sniffed the air of the bedroom of one of the guest suites in Roman D’Angelo’s safe house. Then she smiled softly, set her knitting down on her knobby knee, and waved her right hand. The door across the room slammed shut, affording her instant privacy.

It had closed just in time, as the air before her shimmered, turned blue and sparkly, and then parted, making room for a portal that resembled a long hallway. A child came down that hallway, skipping lightly. She was dressed exquisitely in a long, fine gown that shimmered just like the air. Her very long, very thick hair shimmered as well, in colors that resembled the ocean on a clear, blue day. Small pointed ears delicately parted the locks of that hair, making the girl instantly recognizable. As if there had been any doubt.

The beautiful girl reached the portal’s opening and grabbed ahold of the sides to poke her head through as if it were an actual doorway.

“Is the coast clear?” she asked softly, her voice tinkling like chimes.

Lalura rolled her eyes. “You know good and well it is.”

The fairy grinned and stepped out of the portal one foot at a time as if testing the water. Then she leapt clear of the portal. It slammed shut behind her with a zap of electric magic. “It’s good to see you, Lalura,” the fairy said warmly, moving across the room like a ballerina.

“And you, Titania,” Lalura replied easily.

The fairy cocked her head to one side and narrowed her gaze. “Though I must say, you’ve looked better.”

Lalura laughed, and it was the sound of sand in a tomb. “I can imagine you’d think so.”

Titania blinked. “You don’t think you look horrible?”

Again, Lalura laughed, this time more heartily. She set aside her knitting and slowly stood, leaning heavily on her cane as she did so. “I never said that,” she replied. As slowly as she’d risen, she made her way to the hutch across the room and turned on the tea pot that was plugged in on top of it.

Titania took the seat she’d vacated and curled her slim legs beneath her. “Using an electric tea pot…. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“That’s the problem with you, Titania. You don’t see
most
days. It’s easy to ignore them when you have so many.”

The sound of chimes tinkling filled the room as Titania giggled. “Are you telling me I should step out and take human form, Lalura?”

“It might do you some good. Tea?”

“No, thank you.” Titania stood, leaping out of the chair to stand on her tiptoes for a moment before she did a little twirl and began absently examining the room. “I know it’s been a while, but I’ve come for good reason.”

Lalura finished pouring her own cup of tea, added her milk, decided on a spoonful of honey as well, and then stirred. “I figured,” she said simply.

“The Unseelie Queen has taken her throne.”

“I’m aware.” The old witch turned slowly, reached for her cane, and made her way back to the seat that Titania had temporarily stolen.

Titania moved to the chair and knelt beside Lalura, draping her slim arms over the leather armrest. “Not much ever escaped you,” she said in her tinkling voice.

Lalura said nothing, taking a sip of her tea instead. She closed her eyes as the warm, soothing liquid made its way down her throat to heat her up from the inside.

“Do you think you’ll come back any time soon?” Titania then asked, changing the subject.

“When it’s time,” replied Lalura.

“You do know that if you are still in this body when it takes its last breath, you’ll be trapped in it forever.”

“I’m aware.” She took another sip.

Titania sighed, perhaps in frustration, perhaps in boredom. It was like that with her. She stood again and wandered aimlessly around the room, stopping before a snow globe that had a castle inside. She wound the musical key beneath the globe and turned it in her hand to watch the sparkling flakes swirl around the fake abode.

A beautiful tune filled the room, and Lalura closed her eyes to listen.

As if knowing she was enjoying the music, Titania waited until the music wound down before she spoke again.

“I heard you recently got engaged. Almost married.”

Lalura laughed now, but it was a harsh and dry laugh, nearly void of real humor. “Time has no meaning to you, does it, Titania?”

“On the contrary,” said the fairy defensively, “it simply has a
different
meaning to me.”

“I’ll say,” huffed Lalura. “I was engaged the better part of a century ago.”

Titania was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry,” she said finally. And Lalura knew that she was referring to Conrad’s death, and not the bit about time and its meaning.

Lalura swallowed hard as memories invaded her. Then, in the manner she’d perfected over the decades, she shoved the past away and nodded, just once, with finality. “Thank you.” She took a deep breath, sipped her tea once more, and asked, “Why did you come here?”

“The new queen is in danger.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I came to you because I’m not certain who I can trust in the realms any longer. The threat feels… close by. All around us.”

Lalura considered the fairy’s words. She pondered the situation in silence as her forefinger tapped thoughtfully on the leather of the plush love seat she inhabited.

Titania went on, speaking to her over her shoulder as she perused the spines of several books on a shelf, and then leaned forward to examine a painting hanging on the wall. “I’m not going to ask anything of you directly,” she said, at last turning to face Lalura.

Lalura caught her gaze and held it. It had been a very long time since she’d looked into luminous pink eyes. Perhaps the fairy was right. Perhaps it was growing time to return.

“But I know you care about the girl,” said Titania. “And so does Caliban. If anything happens to her, the realm will fall, and like dominoes, the others will follow.”

Still, Lalura said nothing. Instead, she nodded, and it was the slightest movement. But it was enough.

Titania turned away, waving her hand to open a portal. The air shimmered, split, and a hallway appeared in that other dimension. Lalura knew now that it must be a corridor in Lord Caliban’s castle.

Titania moved more slowly toward the portal than she had moved away from it, almost as if she was reluctant to go. She grasped its edges and tentatively lifted one leg through. But before she followed it with the other, she paused and turned to pin Lalura with one final look. “Don’t wait too long. Just long enough.”

Lalura didn’t have to ponder the double meaning of the advice. She said nothing at all as the fairy who looked like a child but was the eldest of her kind stepped through her portal and vanished down the long hall as it closed behind her.

Chapter Twenty

In the Twixt between the Seelie and the Unseelie realms, there were pockets of magic inaccessible to anyone but the most powerful fae. One such bubble of power was so strong, Caliban alone had managed to breach its outer defenses to make his way inside. That had been long, long ago.

This was his garden now – his and Minerva’s. That’s what he’d told her. Every bit of it, from the labyrinth-like hedges of rose blooms to the beds of clover to the trees forming canopies above them, now belonged to her as much as it did him.

Minerva had rested in his arms, her body cushioned by the impossibly thick and colorful carpet of clover beneath her. The tiny green plants sported every color of the rainbow, and every one of them was four-leafed. Above them stretched the long, sheltering limbs of the most beautiful tree Minerva had ever seen. Each branch possessed leaves like feathers, each feather leaf a different shade of pastel. Caliban had told her the tree was called an
Adarian
, named apparently after a legend about fallen angels.

Its branches shielded the lovers from the Twixt’s sunlight, which unlike the neighboring Seelie and Unseelie realms, was supplied by triple suns, red, yellow, and orange, so high above and far away. Beams of soft light were allowed in through small holes in the canopy to gently warm the ground below like the glow of candle flames.

The garden was unbreachable. Here, Cal had promised her, she would always find solace if she desired it. Here, she would always be safe.

From everyone but him, that was. He’d added that last bit with a wicked smile.

It appeared their love making had somehow healed Caliban’s wounds, and Minerva heaved a sigh of internal relief. She knew she’d given him those scars with the metal she’d thrown at him in the mortal realm. They were gone now.

In turn, Caliban had repaired her clothes for her with a bit of that fae magic that curled around them like a pool of possibilities, and under much duress, he’d given in and taught her how to do it herself. Which he clearly instantly regretted. “It’s a sin to cover that body,” he’d muttered to himself just loud enough for her to hear.

But then he’d dressed himself as well, this time in blue jeans and a black t-shirt, and pulled her back into him so that she rested comfortably against his chest, her hair spilling across his torso, her ear pressed to his heart.

She liked the way it sounded.
Strong
.

Not far from the shelter of the Adarian Tree, a small stream ran its trail through the lush display of perfect grasses, clover, and flowers. It was clear and cool, free from life that might muck it up. She’d even tasted it earlier, and now she rose from Cal’s gentle grasp and sat up as she seriously considered bathing in it.

She glanced back to find Caliban watching her with terrible intensity. His eyes were glittering.

She blushed beneath his study of her, and nervously tucked her hair behind her ears. She felt as if he could tell what she’d just been thinking.

A part of her liked it. Feeling brazen in a way she had never felt before, she stood up, yanked her shirt over her head, and strode to the stream. There, she stopped, tossed her hair back and glanced over her bare shoulder at her lover. He’d risen as well, and now sat with his back against the tree, watching her intently.

She curled her lips in a come hither manner and slowly, temptingly, unbuttoned the top button of her jeans.

He shook his head as his eyes leapt to blazing life, and smiled a smile like whiplash.

Thirty minutes later, Minerva was once more rising from the king’s perfect, poisonous embrace, this time quite intent on lowering her now decidedly and deliciously sore body into that stream.

She made her way to the stream and watched Caliban with a wary eye as he grinned in pure animal satisfaction and scheming design. Then she stepped into the water, and as she did, it warmed around her flesh. She closed her eyes and moaned.

It was heating up like a hot tub. Minerva found herself turning slowly into it, sinking as if it was actually that, and closing her eyes as her body escaped into an entirely different kind of bliss. While she rested there, the water magically singing her every tune, she thought of the past few hours.

She’d changed. She wasn’t behaving like the Minerva she’d come to know.

“I sort of feel
buzzed
,” she whispered to herself. She’d only been drunk once in her life, and it had been a miserable enough experience that she’d learned her lesson the first time. But she’d been buzzed a few times, too, and this felt similar. She was uninhibited. Free.

A soft chuckle from the bank drew her attention. She opened her eyes.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Caliban. He was devastating in nothing but jeans now, his raven hair tousled, his eyes glowing, his body sculpted as if out of stone. He relaxed once more against the trunk of the tree that had shaded them earlier, clearly enjoying the show she was giving him.

She gave him a curious look. “What do you mean?”

He went on. “The buzzed feeling. We’ve exchanged magic.” He shrugged, flexing those sculpted muscles. “Magic
does
things when unseelie fae have sex.”

Minerva swallowed hard. “Every time?” she asked softly.

Caliban lifted off the tree trunk, bent his knees, and draped his arms over them, narrowing his gaze slightly. “Well, no. Not every time. Only when necessary.”

“Necessary?” She was feeling an odd, cold sensation, despite the warmth of the water around her.

“It’s the way the unseelie recharge their magic. Sex for us is often an act of regeneration.”

Minerva ran that over in her head, and recognized where her unease was coming from.

Caliban stood, coming to his bare feet with fluid grace. He sauntered to the stream’s edge and knelt down, his movements like those of a large cat. He pinned her with a hard look. “Minerva, if you’re worried that I’ve used you to replenish my power, you must realize that you took my magic as well.”

She blinked. Then nodded.

He smiled. “And that when we made love, I was already on full, so to speak.”

That was true. She’d given him loads of power by emptying out those rubies. So then, what was troubling her?

“Then why did our magic…
do
that?” she asked, thinking of how it had leaked out of them and mingled. “You said it only happened when necessary, but neither of us needed it.”

His smile broadened, and he shook his head as if in wonder. “I’m not so sure you
didn’t
need it, to be honest. But why it blended the way it did? It’s as much a surprise to me as it is you. You’re my queen, Moonbeam. We were meant to be. It will always be different with us, most likely in more ways than we will ever discover.”

That thought sent goose bumps across Minerva’s flesh, and a flush into her cheeks. She lowered herself a little further into the water and hid her gaze behind her lashes as relief flooded through her. She thought of the other women he’d taken to his bed, whoever they were. And knowing that he might have had a perfectly innocent reason for doing so, in so far as an unseelie could be innocent, was a load off her mind she hadn’t realized was so heavy.

“Why didn’t I know all of this magic and sex stuff already?” she asked softly but aloud, giving voice to the other thing that was bothering her. She was confused by the fact that she knew
some
things about the fae realms, but clearly not everything.

“My advisor, Drummar, seems to believe that it is because you are remembering things your mother told you or that you overheard her speak of when you were a babe.”

She looked up now, instantly rapt. “How can that even be possible? Selene and I were babies when she left us.”

“Fae are not like mortals, Minerva. We can do many things they cannot. Most likely, your mother told you stories, or perhaps spoke with other fae in your presence. You heard these things and you remember them. Your sister doesn’t, because even among twins, fae are unique. In that way, perhaps, we
are
somewhat similar to humans.”

Minerva hugged herself and drifted a little, trying to remember her infancy. It was an impossible task, of course. No one could recall those first moments of their lives. Except… when she
really
tried, she could swear she heard…
music
.

“She sang to me,” she whispered as the realization hit her like a Mac truck. It stole part of her breath, and she spoke very, very softly when she said, “It’s why I love music so much. My mother sang to me the stories of our people.”

Caliban stood, and her gaze followed him up. He kept his eyes on hers as he unbuttoned his jeans, let them drop, and stepped out of them. She moved back a little when he lowered himself gracefully into the stream, but his arm reached out like lightning and snatched her back by her wrist.

He pulled until she stumbled into him, then slid both arms around her so that she nestled contentedly against his chest, the warm water soothing them both.

“You are full of surprises, Moonbeam.” His fingers ran lazily through her hair, brushing them from her cheek and forehead. “And your hair feels like spider’s silk.”

“Cal… what if I can’t do this?”

He pulled back slightly, and she looked up at him. His eyes flashed, a look of soft wonder subjugating his features. He cupped her cheek gently. “You already have,” he told her. “You’ve accepted your place.” He shook his head, and his smile spread reassuringly. “The rest will come as it needs to. Trust me.”

“But, how can you be so sure? I had never even
been
to your realm before you took me there. Not that I remember, anyway.” She supposed her birth mother had lived in
one
of the three fae realms, and she doubted it had been the Goblin Kingdom. So it was technically
possible
she’d been in the Unseelie Realm before. But she would have been a newborn, and hearing someone talk about a land was quite different than experiencing it first hand.

“Anything I know about it feels like knowledge gained by skimming an encyclopedia. You may as well throw me into the ocean and ask me to be the mermaid queen. I can’t take a position of monarchy over a land and people I know nothing about.”

He was silent for a moment, his piercing eyes contemplative and searching. Suddenly, his gaze hardened. He dropped his hand. “Then I will show you.”

Minerva frowned. “Show me?” Her voice sounded much smaller than she’d meant it to.

“If you really believe you can’t be queen before you’ve had the grand tour, then so be it.”

He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. The sound echoed in her ears.

Suddenly, Minerva was completely dry, and completely clothed. She inhaled sharply and stared wide-eyed at Caliban.
He
was now dressed in incredible finery, from white gloves to vest to jacket to what looked like genuine gemstones encrusted over his broad shoulders. The material was a thick, luxurious brocade in silver and black, and suited him like a glove. Formal wear fit for a king.

In a kind of shock, Minerva stepped back, taking in their surroundings. They’d instantly transformed from the small, lush garden in the Twixt that she’d nicknamed her
Wonderland
to what looked like a ballroom or formal hall of some sort. The floor was marble, shot through with veins of multicolored gemstones and metals. Half a dozen thick, white marble columns supported a ceiling several tall stories above. At the floor’s center wound an enormous spiral of beaded glass mosaic featuring swirling designs that curled in toward the center of the room.

Whatever room this was, it was gigantic, sumptuously decorated, and completely empty but for the two of them.

She gave Caliban a bewildered look, which just made the bastard smile, and then she looked down at herself. Now she gasped again, stumbling backward some more. Her leather soles sounded out against the marble floor.

Caliban caught her easily, his movement, as always, nearly so fast she could barely register it. His grip on her upper arms steadied her as he chuckled.

“This is the castle’s Great Hall,” he told her.

Minerva made a small sound, cleared her throat, and said, “Okay.”

Now she knew where she was, but she was really paying attention to her gown. It was exquisite. Absolutely stunning. Minerva had never seen anything like it. Unlike Caliban’s outfit, which was mainly black with silver trim and brocade, Minerva’s was silver with black trim and brocade. They complimented one another to perfection.

“It’s unbelievably beautiful,” she breathed, touching the material of her dress in reverence, and feeling that the description was inadequate.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. She looked up to find him watching her with wonder in his eyes. Their centers will still flickering with fire, appearing as if they would never extinguish again.

“Will your eyes always burn?” she asked.

“I’m afraid they will,” he said as he lifted a finger and ran it delicately across her bottom lip. “As long as you are mine.”