Guardian (16 page)

At the table, Grace sat across from me allowing Pike to be beside her.  I’m such an idiot.  An hour passed with more facts.

Pike interceded with taunting looks and obvious mind talk with my girl.  It was time for another “private” talk to remind him where her heart lie. 

Grace and I walked over to the falls while Pike cussed the table. 
 

“Why does Christian, I mean, Pike hate me so much.   He was annoying all these years in his quiet broody self, but never hateful towards me at least like now.” 

I took her hand in mine and walked further away.  Pike was practically screaming in my ear now. 

From behind us came a shout, “Why don’t you just tell her,
Prince
.  Tell her why I hate you.  Tell her everything she keeps asking in that unfiltered brain of hers.  Tell her what she’s been oblivious to for eighteen years and what options she has,
Prince
. Tell her!” He burst fire in our direction. 
My
direction.

Grace stepped one foot over the threshold of the waterfall making my panic button scream at high volume.  I reached, pulled her hard against me.  I shook in places I’ve never tensed up in before, my entire body went into “Saving Grace” mode.  Lord, if I lost her. Her body tensed in a weird way somewhat in unison with mine.  Like she liked it.  The danger.  And this girl was staring at my lips at a time like
this
.  Was she insane?

She just almost died and she was all but undressing me with her eyes.  Hell! 

“Are you okay?” I asked only because it was the right thing to say.  She really didn’t care about the danger.

Pike reminded me of his presence. 
She isn’t safe around you.

Like you’re the better one to take care of her.

Pike was headed our way.

Grace sighed probably figuring out what we were doing to each other nonverbally.   When I staked the ground in front of her covering his view and disabling his ability to take hold of her and physically bar me from her touch, I couldn’t stop the feeling welling inside.  I growled like an animal for Pike’s physical attack to take her from me. Grace looked at my face as I held her too tight to me. I angled my hands across the front of her, and at the same time shackled her off from his clutches.  I didn’t mean to say it aloud, but the unsettling cause to claim her as my own sent black fire through my whole body.  “
She’s mine
,” I claimed her as my own.  “My claim. 
Mine
.” 

Pike cursed me and stomped away.

She stepped back from me to adjust her gown, probably to have something to do.  I checked her over though she had only been touched by me.  She glanced sideways at Pike still stomping away, “What did he mean by his behavior and why did you say that?”

I sighed heavily, hate welling inside of me.    And what would she think about me after that little display?  I walked her over to a spot near the falls and sat her down. 

She watched Pike again behind me. 

“Is he listening to us?” she said in a small, quiet voice.  I just watched her, like always.  I didn’t always know what to say that wouldn’t get her all mad. 

“No, he can only when I let him.”  My teeth gritted as I spoke in half-truths.

“Pike was the last Seelie court Queen’s son.  His mother died and mine became queen.  He’s held a grudge against me since I was born.  One does not just stop being a prince because of a title change.”  My knuckles tightened hiding my resolved to not tear Pike apart in front of her. 

“He is a Seelie court prince, also. But he’s not your equal, I’m guessing.”

“No, when your queen dies, you lose your status too but keep your place in the court.  He was appointed to the guards.”

She figured it out.  “So you marry the new queen and you don’t lose your status.  He is jealous of your position.  And he still holds his magic, but not like yours,” she prompted letting the aha’s flow.

Pike will hate that she has figured this out.  And it is way more than just jealousy of the status.  

“Go ahead,” she knew there was more.  She was so much more observant than I gave her credit, yet at times blind and naive.  She would hate me soon if I didn’t tell her more.   

I sighed, “He has always been jealous of many things.  Tis’ the nature of both being a prince to the Seelie Queen.  His father died like mine, so he endured the same type of childhood as me.  But when you were born, and the prophecy came about, he believed that the prophecy included possibly him instead of me and became hopeful,” I rushed the words at her wanting them over with.

She questioned me openly, “But then how did you come to guard me if you’re not the prince the prophecy was talking about.”   

“We both guarded you, Grace.”  How much would she speculate, I didn’t know since I couldn’t read her.  I’d promised not to read her mind, and I wouldn’t cheat by asking Pike.  If given no choice, I’d turn to Pike to save her accepting that he’d take full advantage of it.  I held on to the fact that I would in any attempt to save her and break that vow. 

She peeked at Pike after smiling at me.  I really tried not to get angry at that.  Then she emphasized as if clarifying,
“I don’t care about a prophecy anyway, Ian.  Yes, I will do what you ask.  I trust my grandfather knew something about me was going to happen.  That much makes sense to me!  But I love you.  You’ve been beside me and in my head before I knew you even were.  You loved me even when you knew my deepest darkest thoughts, habits, and etc.  Even when I was the “freak” and outcasted.  That makes you the most amazing man I’ve ever known.  And, he’s been a nasty, arrogant…” she closed her eyes, “well, he’s been not so nice about things.”   

“There’s one more thing,” I was barely audible.  I stared at her shoulder and supple soft neck touching her in several spots just to know I could.  And remind Pike that I could.  “I’ve wondered…I can’t help but think…when your eyes didn’t change and I can’t hear your thoughts and you can’t hear anyone or see from their glamour and you have no magic…there is something wrong.  What if…”

She pointed at me and screwed up her gorgeous mad at me my face I’d know for years now.  I would have to make her mad and more just to see it for its glory.  And I seemed to have a talent for it.

“I don’t think that means the prophecy is meant to be him.  We can’t just say what we think and declare it as the reason why I haven’t turned into this magic thing you keep hoping for.  I think if you’ll allow me to voice my opinions, that the scratch, or my half humanness, or something we don’t know we were supposed to do, or all three have something to do with it.  I think everyone is expecting me to be like all the rest.  What if this history changing event in Fey history is meant to change in more ways than even the Fey expected.  I thought a lot about this.  It’s really hard to sleep at night when you are so far away and I want to talk to you.”

Had she not slept?

“I think that Pike will have to accept that I love you and move on.  I’m not changing that whether I’m the queen or not.  Banish me, but you better come with me.  I didn’t hesitate to come with you.  Either we are in this together, or not at all.”  Oh, her monologues!

I felt less than a man.  I knew tears were in both my eyes.  I pulled them back.  Stupid emotions.  She was truly…amazing.

When we let go, Pike was there.  She glared a look I was beginning to love on her when it involved Pike.

“All of it!” Pike announced.

Huh? 

“I thought it was private.” she looked at me for confirmation. 

“He needed to know,” was all I said. 

My girl was
mad
.  “You can’t just choose when you want privacy and not Ian.  You have to draw the line somewhere.  And you can’t leave me in the dark either on everything.”  She looked back and forth and said to both of us, “Either of you!”  

Pike laughed with an odd, twisted smile on his lips that I knew well.  “Lovers quarrel?”  He enjoyed this too much.

“Shut up!  You have no right to act as you do.  You should be thinking for the good of your people, not sulking like a child all the time.  If you’d spent more time appreciating what you have instead of stealing what’s not yours, maybe you’d be a little happier.”  Grace let him have it.
              “Maybe you’d be a little more grateful you’re still alive if you knew what I know. All your little declarations are fine and dandy until some very ugly truths are let free.   Maybe one day your little prince will tell you all of his secrets.  I’m not hiding anything.  Everything you see is what you get,” he motioned down his body, “maybe one day you’ll realize where your rightful place is.  And you need to control your emotions and stop relaying your insights about whatever else you want to say about me and my body,” Pike practically screamed. 

I didn’t utter anything in his defense.  Wouldn’t dare! But I did offer up just for kicks, “Yeah, like invading her dreams worked.” I wanted Pike to be the bad guy.

Pike fumed and walked away from confrontation.  Again! 

Not that I faced any of my own demons or would ever admit it.

“I need to confess something to you, since you can’t read my thoughts and all,” she paused sighing.  She wasn’t thrilled with what she was about to say but I detected nervous energy about the coming meeting with the Nym,
“I feel almost like you’re my flashlight in a room full of darkness if you’ll excuse the analogy.” 

She stopped me from interrupting and acknowledged my confusion.

  “Just let me finish.”  She continued, “I’m supposed to be some kind of queen and I’m obviously some kind of sidekick.  Are we a team, mutually speaking, or am I just eye candy for the crowd?  Are these guys really going to listen to me, or am I just a pretty little thing on a pedestal?  I understand we have to make them think I’m the new queen and the fulfillment of the prophecy and all that jazz, but how will they know you didn’t just bring any human girl up here to show off.”

She could go on forever without a breath.  It was fascinating to watch her go on without a breath in one of her longwinded speeches.   I guessed that’s why she was so good in speech and debate class.  I loved making her argue in front of the others knowing she could defend anything she felt passionate about and I proved it over and over that year.  That much was obvious to me even now.  Drama class was sophomore year and her second talent.  When the play was picked, Grace instantly shied away from it.   My satisfaction was guaranteed when she offered up the reason flowing through her mind.

  When Pike was picked for Romeo, she kept repeating “not me” on that fateful day praying the duet didn’t include her.  When her name was on the roster for Juliet, she announced the next day her mom made her drop out due to her grades.  Pike spoke more that day to her then in her whole life and reminisced daily over it.  She didn’t even hardly remember it!  He remembered it vividly.

Masking his cruel words was a mistake.  I should have attempted to make her hate Pike more.  “Sweet sorrow princess, I will not have the opportunity to watch you die.”  That’s what he’d said to her on the stage before she scampered away from him hurt and confused. 

“My Juliet who always speaks her mind.  I know why you did so well in school, but I am surprised by how you so often got your way with the teachers without magic and that mouth of yours.”

“Well...”

I’d often wondered if she had some underlying supernatural sense of why I couldn’t tell my feelings for her.  In response to her speech I said, “You’re not some kind of toy queen you seem to have convinced yourself to be.  If you’re going to survive all this, though, you’ll need protection.  There is still so much you don’t know.  There isn’t enough time left in this day alone to tell you all you need to know.  I’m not sorry for protecting you.  Maybe we should have stayed at court a little longer to learn a little more, but for now that will have to wait.  Whatever decision we come to today, we will stop and go over everything before we return.  I promise you that.  But I need you to react like a queen, also.  When the Nyms come to the clearing, we have to be authoritative.  We can’t seem disoriented.”

In the clearing, Grace surveyed who she was with.  Seeing the oddly blue and gray ornamentally covered creatures was new to even a half human.   

“Is this the one?” he asked eyeing her over.

Pike nodded.

“And trusted?”

Pike nodded again.

Guard your thoughts, Grace.
I heard Pike warn her having left the telepathic line open for my benefit.  No brownie points for him though.

Would I ever adjust to not having her every thought?  Nope!

“Kinsler is on the move.  He can’t find her and its killing him,” the Nym thief sneered.

She went right ahead and thought exactly what she shouldn’t.  She
needed
to guard.

Pike was trying to shut her up. 

I had to rectify the situation, “He cannot find her.  If he thinks she is in the court, then he has no reason to think he should find her until we are ready for him too.  This is the new Seelie Queen.” I pointed to Grace. 

Pike had just called him by name, Aiden, and Grace flinched at hearing it.  Aiden licked his lips as he watched her and then said, “He’ll not rest until he has her.” 

“His spies only take news of her being kind and loving, not deviating and hateful.  What threat does he still hold to for killing her if this is what they report?”   

Aiden continued, “It’s his lands.  That’s all he cares about.  If he takes her, and keeps her alive, he’ll never let her go.  You know what he’ll do.  It’s not the killing he wants the most.”

Desperate to get Grace away from Aiden, “Will he listen?”

“To who?”

“To her?” I motioned to the obvious.  Aiden’s thoughts were less then clean. 

“You better have her well guarded.  Tasty isn’t she!” 

If he didn’t stop licking his damn lips I would rip them off his face.

“Don’t trust anything he says.  He will want her no doubt,” he licked again.

“He already does. Arrange a meeting, in one week’s time,” I said. 

Is he crazy?  This Kinsler sounded dangerous.
She thought this.

Pike turned to her and replied to her thoughts, “He is.”  Then he turned to me and told me internally,
she isn’t ready
.

Pike looked at her suddenly and projected what she thought. She was making this a farce.  Did she think this was a joke?

“My, my, she is a tasty one,” Aiden licked his lips
again
. “You know I can’t carry this message, but if you draw it up, I’ll make sure it gets found,” Aiden hinted.  His nasty teeth that looked as if they had been sharpened with a knife block ground noisily.  He watched my girl willing her with his mind to move closer to him.  Somehow, it didn’t work thank the bloody hell. 

“Consider it done,” she suddenly said out of nowhere.

The Nym was taken aback and stared open mouthed, teeth and all. She friggin’ bowed at the garbage.  Pike drew her in closer as I readied to fight. 

“I’ve never been spoken to by a queen,” Aiden said swimmy headed and wobbly.

What is she doing?
We
both thought simultaneously.  

She pulled out the silver maple leaf I’d requested she wear on her neck and kneeled before him.  I couldn’t see her face, her eyes.  Pike was showing me what she thought or she wasn’t thinking.  What was she doing? 

Aiden stayed in a bow to her then stuttered, “Forgive me...for doubting.  You are...unusually kind, my queen.” 

“I’ll consider it a personal favor if you’ll make sure my letter is found by the right mediator.” A smooth, too sexy voice flowed from my girl letting me see how much I had to keep a better eye on her.  And far from others.

And what we can learn from her.  This world wasn’t ready for a half human leader.  She didn’t do things our way. 

Drunk on her, Aiden slurred, “Yes, it will be done.” He stumbled away giggling like a schoolgirl.