Betrayal Read online

  We arrived and settled for the drizzly night. With the moon hanging low in the sky like a sleeping kitten on its back, I turned to the sounds of the soft patterned rain. The waterfall looked as it always had with friendly singsong from the water and chattering Fey crowds working endlessly around the camp. I enjoyed the vortex of creatures that made up its jovial illustration even under rainfall. Pike was welcomed with cheers and arm salutes. Ian nodded to a few warm smiles and salutes, but kept beside me more than anything. We stayed in a larger tent than a year ago when Pike left us with accommodations of less than adequate space for a non-married couple.

  The inelegantly laden tent allowed for the two of us to sleep and have a storage area. Of course, I didn’t complain on the sleeping arrangements, but did however glance at Ian when the guards led us to one tent only. The furtive lack of expression from the guard who didn’t hesitate as he sent us into the darkness with one candle to burn irked me, but I let it go.

  All prudence and innocence aside, the night was restful and sleep captured us both instantly. Our guards stood at post and Ian’s arms held me safe till daybreak. I woke early opening just one eye to see if he was still sleeping. His arms were stretched out beside me, void of any clothing and pulled behind his neck. He scent was everywhere, earthy and tantalizing strong. Concentration on getting the extra hour of sleep I could steal was a lost cause.

  “Morning, my love,” his voice smoothed over the moving air between us with his choice of words. They would ever addle my brain with fuzziness.

  I closed my eyes again to keep from acting on my relatively recent impulsive nature when it came to Ian. “Were you watching me?” I said sleepily.

  “Always.” A promise or a threat? Maybe, both.

  “And you slept some, right?”

  “Enough,” he smirked with a definite glint in his eye.

  “Will you keep the amount of sleep you had to yourself though you have in your head other secrets from me?” I admonished myself the second the last word left my tongue.

  Ian’s face stilled, “Everything I do, I do to keep you safe.”

  “Safe for me. Safe for you. Safe is relative Ian unless—“

  “And you do nothing to ensure your own safety,” he said demandingly dropping his arms from behind his head.

  “It’s not as important to me as it seems to you,” I rolled my eyes to hide the fear because really I wanted to stay safe just so I would never lose him. Lord knows I need him more than I want to admit. No, I knew it too well and it scared me.

  “Your safety is everything to me, Grace,” his voice shook with a husky sound, “If you would consider that I need you to try to be careful a little more, it would ease the pain you cause me daily. Giving the world we live in a free pass to take the girl I love is not okay in the least.” He puffed out hot air and it hit my forehead making me ache.

  I caused him pain? “Ian, I hate that you worry over me so much. I mean, I like that you think of me, but really I am fine.”

  “No Grace, you don’t see.” Ian turned his face from me so I pitched my hand upward to wing it back to mine.

  “See what?” I didn’t get why he thought I was in such possible danger on a daily basis. Welcome to the early morning fight for control. A fine wake up.this was. And I caused it.

  “You are the queen of the Seelie court, Grace. There are those who would not have good intentions…or take you from me,” he said through his teeth. He hated telling me this.

  “Is this because we haven’t,” I paused feeling the fiery skin burn around my cheeks, “been together?”

  “Partly,” The dark desire burned in his eyes as they darted to mine. Oh, I could feel that emotion coming in loud and clear.

  “So in a matter of safety speaking, we should um, should um, solve the worries of the future king of this court tonight. Ease his pain!” My words were not eloquent in the least but he followed my line of thinking.

  “Grace,” his voice deeper still, “you are not losing the one thing that means more to me than anything a man treasures more. I will have you, no doubting that, but it will be on the day you marry me and say you’ll be mine forever.”

  Whoa! A very honest, romantic softer version of my Ian was talking. Why does he make my knees shake?

  “I already am,” I un-prudishly mumbled in the other direction as I tried to entice him when I folded backward for a kiss. No, I loved that he wanted to wait and make it special. I loved that on the outside Ian was this bad boy imaged hottie and total swoon worthy poetic softie on the inside that only I would ever know. I think somewhere deep inside there was an inner fire that lived for the idea that I could be so daring and know that the man I teased was in absolute torture from my whimsical ways, yet would still keep my virtue at the top of his listed demands. What girl wouldn’t think he was perfection with a few stubborn man issues? Well, they would never find out!

  “You are impossible, Grace,” he moved away from me.

  “Oh, but you would be bored without my impossibleness.” I made humor lessen the moment, for him.

  “Now we are inventing words,” he rolled back into me and his warmth washed over me heating up parts of the unknown. The heated moment had passed with our playfulness so I forced it down and away. Very.hard.to.do!

  “Had you listening so intently to my words, didn't it?” And distracted him from the previous safety conversation too. I nipped his chin with my teeth. He shuddered and pressed into me.

  “Grace—“

  I hushed his mouth with my finger and whispered, “I will watch my back better and stay safer if that is what you need. I am learning. Just be patient.”

  His body relaxed into mine. He nuzzled his mouth into my neck and breathed deeply. “A man can only be so patient, human or not.”

  ***

  Ready and standing in the clearing now, I counted the men around me. Five, six...ten, eleven...fifteen men and little ole’ me! I wished myself luck and let go of Ian’s hand.

  Three of them were Pike’s men. The rest were from our court. Well, essentially all were from our court, but I’d learned that the majority of his men had lived at his domain since I came into existence. Funny how one little detail can make you feel guilty for something you had no hand in, but were every bit apart of.

  “All powerful Grace skills of the mind ready to go to work?” Ian asked and even mustered a goading smile in my direction and practically singing my name. The words just hung in the air around it.

  “Yes,” I smiled back embellishing the high it put me on. Needed that! My Supergirl was screaming to break free.

  “Spread some of those skills around. Let the rest feel your power,” Pike smirked sexily right here in front of Ian.

  Ian was predictable by now. He rushed at him just as I spread my hand across Ian’s chest and curled my fingers up on his neck. “You have a certain affinity for the worst moments to share your witticisms, Pike.” I popped his name out like it was a bad taste in my mouth returning the opposite favor of using the inflection in one’s voice as ammo. Dangerous games, these are. Dangerous men.

  “And you have the same affinity for reminding me how I will never level up to what you want.”

  Why was he like this right now? And so blunt? I still think men mood swing as much as women. Maybe more.

  I started to say something. Anything to get him focused, but Pike announced with a dry tone like he was unconcerned with the coming company or anything at all, “He’s here.”

  Chapter Four

  innocent- adj. not guilty of a crime or offense

  When the broad shoulders and massive body of Kin emerged from the trees, my heart sped up. Not because he was gorgeous, he was, but because I didn’t decide till right then that maybe I’d chosen wrong. Just maybe he was the villain and I was inviting danger to stay in my back pocket and live there too much. He used his looks, his strength, his charm, his status in every way possible to get what he wanted. And at the moment it wasn't hard to see what or who his curren
t target was.

  “Grace!” he said slowly and as smooth as the wicked, jaded devil blue silk shirt he wore like the Kin of the past at prom and every dance held where I always refused him. My body jumped at hearing the sound of his voice pulling me from my panic of hysteria. Submitting to the present evil was warm and welcoming when I considered the greater evil who lurked back at the winter court.

  “Kin.” My guard was up and at the ready like someone poked a needle in my back.

  “Grace,” he repeated.

  “Let’s just cut to the chase. My ingenuous nature hounds my very existence, but you don’t have to patronize me with thinking I’m ignorant.”

  “I wasn’t involved. They went out on their own. And I’ve never thought you daft in any way.”

  I let out a pinned up breath through my nose ignoring any brown-nosing intended comments and told him, “How do you prove it?” Because I know the boys around me will ask.

  “I can’t.”

  Okay! “Then what assurance do we have that they will not return?”

  “Enough of the byplay,” snapped Pike.

  Kin’s face hardened for him, softened for me. “Grace, you know I cannot assure that unless I myself wage war against them. I can assure you that I will not allow them to hurt you in any way.” His neck moved with the large swallow he tried to keep hidden from our little study group of warriors. He accented the word “you” significantly and I couldn’t help but glance both directions to see Ian and Pike nod in agreement. Solidarity among these three made my brain hurt.

  Then, as if it was an illusion, Kin stepped back into the winter prince mode and threw insults instead, “I want to assume that the other two tree boys here are doing their end to keep you safe though it seems to me that one of them has rather lost his touch.”

  Pike took two violent steps forward intending for sure some form of bodily harm to Kin, but Ian grabbed his arm and held on. I slid in front of Pike and faced Kin, “You will not be a nuisance. Either gain some manners or I’ll not give you the time a day again on this earth.”

  His teeth gritted sliding side to side and finally, slowly he released his sealed tight lips to say, “As you wish.”

  “Will you help me find out why the Nyms attacked my court?” And on top of that, take out your daddio back at the house!?!

  “If I know already does that automatically make me guilty in your eyes?”

  Yes! “No!”

  “They had intel that Pike here was in the wrong territory at the wrong time.”

  All eyes turned to Pike, including mine to see his defense. Without hesitation he answered, “And they attacked simply because I crossed beside their border and not in it?”

  “Yes.” Kin screwed his mouth up in a tight line.

  “They treatied with me,” I reminded not just Kin.

  “They treatied to leave you alone, Grace. To leave you alone. When Pike violated the treaty and they went for him, he and his men fought back. They couldn’t help that the girl stood in the way of Pike. They were only seeking what they considered their rightful revenge on Pike’s incompetence.”

  Pike growled low and long. I reached out and held one hand to his other arm as Ian held the other still. Pike never told me any of this, but I was sure it had to do with his mother. I was sure Ian couldn’t know of Pike’s unhidden trails. It would have surfaced in the meeting room when we were discussing it, but then again, he’d known about his mother before me too.

  “Will you help me?” I was pretty confident that he would. Mostly.

  “Yes. I will contact them only if Pike agrees to meet acknowledging his wrongdoing on their land,” he said tightly.

  “I will not—“

  “He will.” I answered for Pike knowing he’d let me do this even if I had to help out my cause with persuasion, but he wasn’t the least bit happy about it.

  Kin’s hefty response with the knowing smirk of Pike’s defeat didn’t help either. This would turn into a dogfight if I didn’t hurry it up. Kin chortled and shook his head slowly side to side.

  Geez. Kin loved this too much. “You’re one to talk,” I said too bitterly.

  I turned upward to Pike’s face. He changed from anger to pleading eyes in a matter of seconds and back to anger. I couldn’t talk to him the way I wanted at the moment.

  Kin shrugged with one of his hundred watt smiles he threw around so easily, “You’re my prize, not tree boy. Just keep your pretty smile plastered across your face for me to see and it’s all good with me.”

  “Get a message to me letting me know what the Nyms say. In the meantime, I have a friend to bury.” The sad taste in my mouth returned as I said what I needed to say.

  Kin twitched his mouth reducing it to remorse. “I’m sorry about your friend. She didn’t deserve to die.”

  However kind the words were meant, I only nodded and signaled for him to go wanting the repressed memory to disappear. When he stood there a bit longer as if waiting for something, I simply stared at him. What did he think he could do, Shane hands, arms,kiss me?

  Ian growled.

  Pike growled.

  Kin smirked.

  Ah, heck boys!

  Chapter Five

  arranged- v. organized or make plans for in a required order

  I’d thought back to the meeting room discussion about Kin and the questionable quests. He has been secretly going to the border of his own court to obtain some kind of information from the Unseelie guards. Since this was his own court, I had my doubts and concerns as to what he would be asking them.

  So!

  “Come on!” I told Sarah who was fervently mumbling curses about me under my breath if we were caught. “Don’t worry, we have Rion.”

  I patted Rion’s shoulder. He just looked at me with the same blank look he always does. He’s such a militant one. I never wanted to lose him.

  “If Bane finds out I did this, he will flip a lid.”

  “You’ve been hanging around me too long. You sound like me.”

  Sarah giggled. I was glad she found the incredibly large caveman like guy attractive. He deserved happiness, as well as her, and it was more than obvious they both had it bad for each other. He was a lush around her and that completely went against his macho man look.

  “Yeah, well at least you don’t look like me. You’re gorgeous. Bane falls at your feet every time you bat an eyelash.”

  Sarah’s face straightened. “Don’t act so human. You know you’re beautiful. Besides, you don’t see yourself the way Ian sees you, Grace. He can’t see straight when he is around you. And after all this time, he doesn’t just lust after you anymore, he loves you deeper than I’ve seen any Fey man.”

  “You’re lying.” She was just plain lying now. I knew full well he loved me, but accepting it was the hard part. It meant being vulnerable in all the ways you seek to not let a man see. It meant giving all of yourself.

  “Oh girl. Asking for reassurance right now is just some fear related knee jerk reaction. Ian all but trips over his own feet when he catches you on the radar, but you know this. In fact, I don’t think his radar turns off. He singularly eyes you in a room like the rest of us don’t exist. Only when you bust out the sarcasm or irk him off bad enough does he remember he has an audience. That boy wants you so bad it hurts him.”

  Her eyebrows wiggled sending hidden messages even a girl my age shouldn’t be thinking. Yeah, you think teen girls fight restraint and rage with hormones. Try being old enough and remembering the virtues you live by with a hot guy asking you to marry him all the time. I couldn’t wait to be married.

  “Come already, we need to get going and back before Bane finds you gone from his constant barbaric romanticisms.” Sarah giggled again and I grunted at her.

  We sneakily made it to the edge of the wood line where the entrance to the winter court sat after more than an hour of dodging who and what, mainly the Nym camps. I saw at least twenty guards milling about, and yet some were actually keeping a watchful eye. Wer
e that many guards around our own court and I’d never noticed? I vowed to check.

  I motioned to Sarah with our unpracticed sign language we’d created as we walked through the woods to our destination, over a mile away and exactly as I remembered. The primitive two fingered walk across my hand and making a loop all the way around the palm did the trick though. Sarah stood stark still while I circled the perimeter only but about twenty feet or so that I remained in Rion’s sight as ordered. I wouldn’t want to defy orders of course. Me?

  Talk went through the guards about whose weapon was better and much talk about girls. Human girls. Fey. They didn’t seem to mind much. I heard one crudely comment about one of the Fey winter court’s group of young girls “budding” into women. If I wasn’t hidden and from the enemy court, I’d have given them a piece of my mind. At least I didn’t recognize any to think even worse of them.

  Several of them had found love. I could tell the frisky, horndog voices from the caring, possessive loving ones. I’d heard them both before.

  I managed to catch the conversation on the wind concerning some Nyms who came too close the border. They scared them off, nothing more.

  Moving back towards Sarah and Rion, I merged with the trees to listen at the front gate. Seeing Rion’s eyes follow me made me feel safe and without care of what was around me. He was a huge man in his prior life. Large like Kin, linebacker style. He wasn’t bad looking once you got past the hollow in his eyes. It made me feel sad for him.

  Knowing he’d never smile or show emotion, I gave him what I could. “Thank you Rion. You truly are a treasure to me.”

  He nodded and continued to survey the five foot perimeter around my body that he always did. It was meticulous and reminded me just how much he took his job seriously.