Betrayal (21 page)

Kin stood before me.  The “P
rotect Grace Crew”
stood nearby with their just in case stances dug into the floor as he had entered. I didn’t think this would ever happen, but Ian allowed him to come to our court to share information with me about the rescue.  I knew he really wanted to tell me about my father publicly.  I should have told Ian by now the other details about what Kin told me, but I was scared to death to find out otherwise that something else was amiss with these sordid prophecies.  Would Ian already know and be forced to hide yet another secret from me? Or worse, take him from me?  Yes, we were back to the secrets.  Would they ever end?

We stood in the meeting room with every guard surrounding me on one side of the table and Kin on the other.  He spoke aloud and in my mind.  I carefully blocked and guarded my thoughts to find out a few answers I couldn’t get elsewhere without severe embarrassment.  Logic told me to just start being blunt.

“What news do you have?” I asked aloud with a markedly strict air. 
You said once that Pike and Ian keep hidden from me the power I will hold.  What does that mean?

Kin deliberated a while before saying, “The Nyms were not killed somehow.” 
When you are finally marked by your mate, if it is me who has the privilege, I will stand beside the most powerful creature to ever exist in our world.  A raised to be human queen who was once a king’s daughter who possibly isn't human at all, but thought to be and shares the blood of both courts will have the power over humans not even we can hold.

First of all, marked by anyone sounded gross.  Second of all, I wasn’t in the business of helping out any of these princely dudes in that way.  My wedding night would be mine and who I share it with, not a “mark the queen” night.  I ignored where his thoughts led and said,
I thought my father was Fey when I was conceived?

I believe my father stripped him of any Fey qualities long before that, but I’m not sure.  It’s not something I can just ask.

Kin not knowing something was inconceivable.  Noticing our silence to the crowd I remarked back to his last response, “Thank you for making sure no one got hurt.”

“I didn’t,” Kin said. 

Fine!  Same old, same old Kin, but his words infuriated me no matter which conversation I followed.  “What about the others that were not rescued?”  I knew this answer, but we needed a reason to meet.

“Not possible.”  The austere short answer attitude was growing, not easing. 
Garg!

“Will you try?”

“No!”

“Fine!  Are we done here
?”  Are you going to see my mother?

Already have.

I raised an eyebrow by accident.  Ian watched Kin so I was fine still, but Bane watched me too carefully.  Was he trying to listen in?  Of course he couldn't.

“I will take that as a yes,” I finished off.

Grace, Pike has been following me.  He knows where I’ve been going.

Figures. 
Well, now I know.  I’ll take care of it
.

He smiled so deviously I couldn’t stop the laugh it caused in my belly.  Secrets in any relationship can destroy it.  I could just ask Ian.  Then maybe when I ask him again where Pike has been going, he’ll tell me.

Kin frowned this time.  “Queen Grace.”  He turned to Ian.  “Ian.”  It was obvious by the murder swelling in Ian’s eyes over what we’ve been doing that this would be discussed.

As he turned away from me, he stopped and looked back to give me one quick smoldering despondently driven look
.  I am sadly jealous of everything he has, but he doesn’t deserve disloyalty.  Be honest with him, Grace.

What the heck did that mean?  Now Kin was making me feel bad for keeping secrets from someone who refused to share with me in the first place.  Yeah, it was for my safety and all that crap, but I could handle it.  Ahhh!  And so could Ian for that matter.  Kin was right. 

I should have thought more carefully on who to ask.  Only days have passed since I’d made the decision that I’d never leave Ian’s side, not harbor any secrets for the sake of safety, and here I was doing just that.  Sometimes I wonder if I deserve forgiveness.  Being a queen was hard enough with adding wife to the pile of titles.  Was anyone ever ready to balance both?

When the guards disappeared to escort Kin from the court, Ian asked me to sit in the garden.  I had a feeling I was being led to a confession booth.

Once seated, we watched the fountain for a while each keeping our silence as a barrier.  Finally Ian asked, “Why do you talk to him that way?”

He knew and told me so to be sure I knew his look was intended for a purpose.  “I know that he is not well liked but he has more than just the evil plot of taking over the world in mind.”

“And you know what that is?” Ian asked me taking in a tight breath. 

Does a vampire have fangs?  Of course I do.

“Yes.”  I admitted.  I am in a confession booth, right?  “He told me about my father.  More than anyone else knows or seems to want to share.”

That was a silent dig on “keeping secrets for my own good”.  He should share more. 

“And that is?” Ian asked.

“Do you know?”

“Probably some of it,” he admitted, his blasé attitude getting on my nerves.  His eyes told me more than his words making me acutely aware of how much I didn’t know and how sensitive I was to his ability to know how much to tell me.  I had to look away from his hold on me.

He wasn’t seeing it as half a joke like I was.  I caressed the ring on my finger willing myself to see why he would withhold the information.  “We are back to secrets again Ian.  I am done with it.  It hurts to be forced to seek them out to get them.  If anything, you drive me,to them. When you want me, all of me, come and find me.”  I walked off stomping to my room.  No joke!

I know it was immature.  Stupid.  Crappy silly girl drama.   Who cares?  I do!

He was in my room when I arrived there.  Stupid Superman powers. 

“Appearing in my room doesn’t win me over.”

“Does this?” he tried to kiss me.  I pushed him off.

“NO Ian.  I’m not a toy.  When we can do this right, we can talk about what you want.”  He knew I was serious now.  He stepped back and sat on the bed.

When he started to talk, I recognized his tell-all voice, “I know about your father.  I know who he is and who he was.  Your mother asked me never to tell you.” I tensed as he held my chin to look me dead in the eyes. 

“My mother shouldn’t get a say so.”  I’m just saying.  My answer was frivolous and two-year-oldish, but it was the truth.

He pulled one shoulder up, “She shouldn’t get a say so in her daughter’s safety?”

“Fine, but that doesn’t hide the fact that you’re still keeping secrets from me and forcing me to do the same.  I’m tired of dancing around them.”

He stood and looked at me, crossed his arms, and walked one step closer calling my bluff.  “She did it to save you.  If the winter king wanted you dead, he could have.  I protected you for eighteen years, Grace.  You want me to confess secrets?”

I nodded zealously.  Did anyone else see all this as backwards a touch?

“You are so difficult sometimes.”

I smirked, holding back the sarcasm.

“I hated you.”  His hand flattened across my neck and inched up to rest his thumb across my cheek.

Gasp!  “What?” Backwards was right.

“I hated what you represented and that I would be expected to marry you because of some prophecy.  In the beginning, I did what I did for your mother.  She married the enemy and made offspring with him and I was supposed to just do what they said and marry you, an Unseelie half breed as I once called you.”

This was not the confession I foresaw when he folded his arms.  His usual beat around the bush attitude and finally give it up to me with affection was missing. 

“You hate me?”  I was dumbfounded.  Devastation ate me up but I went with it.

“Hated!  For years I guarded you.  Kinsler was after you and I often wanted to just let him have you.”

He was killing me with a thousand daggers.  I started to cry and didn’t stop it.  I didn’t wipe a single tear away either.

“Grace, I almost let him have you.  And then I realized something that day, early in our first years.”

“What?” I barely whispered.

“You weren’t Kin.”

Okay! 

“You weren’t evil.  You had values and love and strength and courage.  You were compassionate and curious and I loved you from that moment.  At first though, it was just a respectful love.  A world of possibilities for our courts.  A better future.  Then later, more.”
              I couldn’t wrap my head around his logic.  “So you hated me for being the winter court’s possible offspring and suddenly loved me because I didn’t act like it?”

He smiled, “Exactly.”  He appreciated my reasoning it out.

“Um, that’s the worst love confession I’ve ever heard.”

“Well, it’s true whether you like it or not.” 

I felt like a train slowing down on the tracks waiting for the engineer to decide which track to follow.  Okay, deal with it I would.  “And you knew who my father was and didn’t tell me because then I would do something dangerous like killing King
In
Sane or even Kin?”

“Exactly!” he beamed again.  Men and their short answers.

“Okay, fine.  So what else do I not know?”

“Lots,” he grinned.  He wanted me to accept this once again and move on.  Fine.  Why do men have to feel like they are in control when really it is us that keep them in check? 

“Okay.   I’ll deal for now but no,promises that I might blow up again.  Would you like to know what I know?”

He frowned at the admission of secrets from him.  “Oh yes Ian, even I have to dance around your secrets to keep you safe also.”
              He huffed and mumbled. 

“You can act ape man all you want, but if I’d told you what Kin said to me on the last two occasions, you or he would be dead.”

He was all over me then.  He patted my body down and looked for
who knows what
.  “What are you doing?”

“Being angry with you,” his voice sounded distant.

“By checking me over?”

“Seems a good reason to remind you you’re mine.”

Ape man rides again.  “Ian I never left.”
              “Then don’t threaten it,” he seared his eyes into mine pressing his body further in to prove his point. 

“I know about the other prophecy,” I blurted out.

He froze, his mind was far away from me for a long second.  “How?”

I twisted my head sideways to look up at the ceiling and hinting the obvious. 

“He showed you?” Ian wasn’t hiding his anger.

“Yes, Ian.  He showed me.  I have to ask him things sometimes because he will tell me what I want to know.”

“When did he tell you?” He asked braiding his fingers into both my hands and squeezing just a little too tight.  He really was scared.  I wanted to throttle him into tomorrow. 

There was no going back now.  “In the bathroom at his court.”  It’s so minute, it wasn’t worth mentioning, but I certainly didn’t want Kin telling him in a heated anger moment of self satisfaction.

His hands let me go and he took two steps back.  Did he not trust me?

“Fully clothed.  He locked me in with Rion on the outside and appeared just like you did to enter my room just now.”  Wish I could just appear places.  Who knows, maybe I can but will get down the other far from perfect magical abilities first.

He curled his eyebrows up and the ever famous pacing began.   I watched him walk back and forth in front of me as I relayed most of what Kin said. 

I really hated the secrets game now.

“Yes, I am very aware what would happen if you should allow me to be the one to mark your innocence and make you more powerful than any of us.”

Yep!  He knew all the sweet little details.  “Well, I’m asking because,” I swallowed, “well, Kin hinted once that it would not just benefit me, but the whole court to which I choose because I was half human and this would make me charge over humans too.”  Since I was of both courts, I assumed Kin meant this had a lot to do with it.  The more clues I gathered, the better prepared I’d be, right?

“Yes, it will benefit the court you choose simply because the other court will not have the same amount of power.  You avoid using glamour with humans and therefore that makes you able to save your battery so to speak with your power in an emergency.  Kin wants that power.  Ian or I never told you, is that what you really want to know, because I can tell by your face that you knew all of this already.  It is a harder concept to accept than you needed to bear any earlier than needed.”

I felt ashamed that I tried to trick him into telling me, but there it was.  “Yes, I want to know why you both hid it from me.”

“Grace, I understand that I will never have you.  I get this and hate it with everything in my being, but it is my burden and I will carry it quietly.  I will give you anything your heart desires till my last breath but that knowledge is not easy to walk the court with and woo a girl at the same time.”

He said
woo
.

“That worries me more than anything since I am not worth all that you give.  I hate that you lose in this.  It kills me to see you sad.”

His face changed, “It does?” 

“Pike, give yourself some credit.  You are a great catch and don’t deserve loneliness.  I want everything for you.  I’ve liked you since as far back as I can remember.  You were the silently brooding gorgeous boy who watched me daily at the lockers and saved me from Kin on more than just a few occasions.”  And there is a certain amount of me that will always have a fire lit for Pike.  A heat.  I can’t explain it.  I can admit in some small way that I love Pike in a certain way.  Attraction was there, but something else wasn’t.

In the contrast, the way I love Ian.  The way he loves me.  It’s not out loud the way Pike tries to show it.  It’s a quiet love, but it doesn’t make it any less.  I admire that he feels troubled by having to put his feelings into words.  It means he’s careful and thinks enough of me to make sure his words are genuine and come from the very essence of him. 

Pike didn’t respond back to me yet. After a while he smiled like his next words would be hard to get out, “Ian never told you about either part because he doesn’t care about the
power
and what it does for the court if it means you think less of him.  He made me keep it quiet so that you would know that you are first and foremost the most important person who he has ever put before himself.  He wants you and only you.  He couldn’t live with himself if he ever thought for one minute that you gaining power would be more important to him than you alone.  It would end him.”

I honestly knew for sure that Ian would feel this way, but somehow this was Pike speaking from his own heart at the same time to make me thankful for Ian’s proclivity to keep secrets from me for my own
good
.  I hated to see Pike hurt by it and was so thankful that he made me able to see this now.  He’d become somewhat of a confident and I needed to turn this back to a friend-to-friend conversation so that he would always be one.  I moved super fast up to his cheek and popped a kiss on it.  “You need to tell me something else now.”

His alarm bells rang with the kiss, but he smiled anyway.  “What is it?”

“Why does Ian act like I am so fragile just because I am a girl?”

He barked out a long, humorous laugh looking like the guy I sassed off with in my head for so long before we started talking aloud more.  “He doesn’t want to see you hurt, or scarred, or damaged.  Men get a little possessive once they find their piece of perfection.  You represent the one thing that seems perfect in this crazy mixed up world, and he doesn’t want it marred in any way.”

I shouldn’t have said it, “You speak like you know this is true of every man.”

“I just know what I know,” he shrugged.  His previous response was probably the longest monologue ever out of him that was all positive. 

And he was speaking from the heart again but I countered it with, “You do know that every female on this planet wants a man to talk to her the way you do to me.”

“Only want to say it to one.”

“You say that, but it doesn’t seem Ian can talk to me this way.  It’s too hard to tell someone you love that much of the deepest part of you.  I tend to think you tell me things with such blatantly honest feelings because it can’t hurt you if I repel from them.”  Yet I’ve seen the way Ian watches me when he doesn’t think I’m looking.   Like I’m the prey.  The way his eyes seem to follow me as I cross a room and find my every move.  Carefully.  Deliberately.

It’s those actions that say more than words.

“Perhaps, but if you tell any girl what I say to you, I’ll deny everything.  I’d rather others think I’m the hard calloused wretch they have always thought me to be.”

“I disagree with that, you are a great guy Pike.  Any girl would be lucky to find you and according to the ladies of my court, many have tried.”

He shrugged, “Just passing time.   I let someone see me closer and see what it’s getting me.”

“A best friend,” I shined a smile up to him and started to walk through the garden to the fire pit area I always sat at.  Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I craved his presence in my life.  It wasn’t any kind of come hither wanting actually, it was his zest for company.  I wanted to have someone that would always be there to talk.  Ian was hard to talk to about some things.  Pike was one big open book. 
              I’d once called him a mystery.  He wasn’t to me anymore.

He bumped my shoulder and said, “And apparently man advice giver.  I charge, you know.”

“What’s the price?”  Warmth washed over me, and I giggled.

“Oh, I’ll be nice,” he folded his arms playfully trying to act mad, but his eyes swept over me indicating something else.

“Heard you were quite the card player.  I play for human candy, not the money you apparently cheated out of others for years.”

“Human candy?” he exaggerated his words ignoring my jab at him.  “Oh yes, I couldn’t get enough of those little colored bears you threw all the time at people or the sour ones too.”

He looked like a little kid.  “That can be arranged,” I told him.  I punched him in the arm as he did the same.  We laughed so loud it carried on the wind.  When I finally let go, I realized Ian was watching us from the garden entrance and looked to be in a cheerless stance of fear.

I punched Pike one more time on the arm and signaled for Ian to come over and join us at the growing crackling fire beside us.

“Hey!” My cheeks grew warm thinking about what I’d asked Pike about and worried now if Ian had been allowed to listen.

No, I didn’t let him hear your questions.  I was nice.

Thank you.
  I had a best friend in some ways.  Maybe Pike would help with all the guy advice I was sure to need. 

Most of it.

I closed my mind off blushing in his direction now.  Ian misinterpreted it of course. 

“Grace here was asking about why Kinsler wants her to be his queen so bad.”

My happy bubble popped.

“I gave in to her many charms and told her that he had bigger agendas when it came to what happens after the union of the court heir and a supposed half human queen.  Her cheeks fill with color because she sees your face and knows what she does now.  I’ll take my leave and let you two deal with that knowledge with my ears completely out of shot for any embarrassing conversations that I’d like to avoid.  Ian, take care of her if you know what’s good for you.”

With that, Pike walked into the woods like a cowboy in the sunset.  Pike had just saved me from Ian’s “unreadable fears”. 

“I told you this before.”

“No, you told me about being marked, and that I would be Supergirl, but you didn’t tell me about this human hold I’d have or that the other court would feel threatened by me or that—“

His hand covered my mouth.  He leaned in close, “I don’t care about all that unless it is important to you.”

He moved his hand and I told him, “Pike said you’d say that.”  He glared at me as if he were angrier for involving Pike.  “You’re mad at me now.  You’re going to ignore me again?” I snapped feeling forgotten altogether as a horrible alternative, but I didn’t want either. I chided myself for saying either statement to him.  My own anger raged up like a she-wolf left alone for too long.

“I don’t need Pike telling my girl things she should hear from me.”  His face was dark and haunted with ghosts I couldn’t see.

“I asked him.” A jolt of pure excitement ran through me at the copious thought of my man being jealous and protective even in that way. Oh yeah!

He looked shocked.  “Why?”  He looked so disgruntled I couldn’t not tell him no matter how hard I blushed.

“Because there are some things that are very hard to ask from the one you love.  Asking you about our way too far away wedding night just seems to close my throat and make me go all wishy washy when I look at you.”  I can’t believe I just said that.  “Asking Pike just seems right.  He acts like it’s just another conversation and tells me the honest truth without much to hold back.  Plus, I don’t hate Pike for being the way he is with me just because I can’t return what he wants.  He deserves happiness and has been a good friend.  He’s given me the words I needed on several occasions that made me feel strong and able to go on.”  He glared again.  “Don’t you glare at me, mister.  He made me understand this guy thinking about shielding me from harm that you seem to hold me to by keeping your secrets.  I admire it and love it now.  I get it a little more.  Doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying to get around your protector Ian ways and attempt dangerous rescues of damsels in distress, but it does mean I will let you have your way when you need to be all manly protector dude ninety percent of the time.  No more nagging to get you to tell.”  Right now the truth was my only bargaining chip for showing him how much I understand he has a hard time telling me things.  As if I could think less of him!

“What should I say that you didn’t?  I don’t like it.  I just don’t.  I get that you see him as a friend, but he still doesn’t.  He never will, Grace.  I want you safe and admit I’d hide you in my room for myself every day if it meant I’d lose you, but I know that’s not the solve all.”  He was breathing hard.  “Damn it Grace, just marry me now.  Tonight.” 

What is this, Monologue Monday?

“Not time yet.  We have things to solve first.” Why did he need the rushed wedding?

“Fine.”

Fine?  “I don’t want to fight,” I added meekly.

He softened.  “I don’t either.”  He moved over and held me, kissed me, and held me more. 

When I left the dinner table that night, Pike met me at the garden as I walked to meet Ian at the trampoline.

“Well,” he asked, “are we all made up?”  He was being a friendly kind of friend.

“He resulted to asking me to marry him tonight,” I looked down.

“Grace, he only wants to end all this jacked up prophecy junk and make you happy.”
              “Getting hitched will do this?” 
Ingenious!

“To a guy, yes.  We will do anything to make our little piece of perfection happy, remember?  It’s called “whooped” and we don’t like to admit it.”

“But getting married?”

“If I spell it out to you you’ll blush like earlier.”
              “Fine.  Do it.  I have to know.”

He sighed.  “To a man, once he beds the one he loves, he is complete.  He needs that as much as you need his words and emotions.”

“How do you know so much about the way I think as a girl?  You’re right of course.” Ugh!  I’d rather eat bugs than admit to Pike he’s right about something, but there.it.is.

“Guess I’m just observant.  You’ve taught me a lot just by watching you for nearly nineteen years,” he conceded unwittingly.

Guess that stands to reason.   “And you read my emotions half the time the cheat way,” a heavy pause passed over us then I said, “Thank you for your advice.  Again.  I owe you some gummy bears.”

“No prob.  And I’ll take you up on that.  See ya.”  He walked back through the court.  I continued on to my Ian.

When I moved to lie down beside him on the soft netting I wanted to get out what I needed to say, “You’re not going to lose me, Ian.  To anyone.  I know you think you will, but I’m going to prove to you that you won’t.”
              He didn’t talk, but snuggled me closer to him, and we stayed silent and watched our stars till we were both asleep.