Made to Love (21 page)

Dr. Muzhchyna looked at me
pityingly.  “There is a fast way out of this, your majesty,”
he said.  “All you must do is surrender the Radiant Lands to
me.  It is simple enough.”

I shook my head.  “No…
no!  You can’t!”

“
Why does she care so much
about a world that she only learned of so recently?” he asked,
directing it toward Byron.  “All these things – these
unicorns, these magical creatures – mean nothing to her.  She
doesn’t even have love for you, you know.  She only Joined
with you three to save her own life!”

“
You don’t understand,”
Rich said, stepping forward.  “I have never known such love as
I have with Calliope, and we’re not even
in
love.  Her
soul is made of love.  She is my queen, and the queen of all
the unicorns.”

Byron placed a hand on my
shoulder as well.  “It is the same for me, Father. 
Calliope assembled me with nothing but the greatest, most tender
amounts of love possible.  I would follow her to the ends of
this Earth and beyond to be with her.  She is the only person
I have ever wanted inside me, and it shall stay that way
forever.”

“
And I, too,” Octavius
said above my head, his arms wrapped around me.  “At first,
our relationship was based upon my desire to have her power. 
But with time, I saw beyond that.  I saw her tenderness. 
Her love.  And now I love her, too.”

Dr. Muzhchyna looked so
confused.  He clutched the button in both of his hands,
backing up slowly.

“
People are not driven by
love, but by power,” he said.  “This is
ridiculous.”

A murmur arose in the
unicorns behind us.  They were all avowing their love for
me.

It gave me the strength I
needed to stop crying and look the doctor in the eye.

“
I do love all of them,” I
said.  “Byron, Octavius, and Rich are my kings now, and the
Radiant Lands of Myth and Faerie are mine as well.  It means
the world to me.  My love is everything.  They have
awakened love in my soul and it’s just the most amazing thing
ever.”

“
I would do well by the
Radiant Lands,” Dr. Muzhchyna said.  “I would take care of
them, and its people, very well.”

“
But you want it all for
nothing more than power, not for love,” I said.  “You will
never understand that.”

He fell to his knees and
began to weep.  It was a pathetic sight—a grown man, a mad
scientist, brought to tears.  He hit a second button on his
remote, and the wind died down.  The island stopped
rumbling.

“
You are better for the
Radiant Lands of Myth and Faerie than I could ever be,” Dr.
Muzhchyna said.  “I see that now.  There is no love in my
heart.  Only the black desire for power.”

Byron crossed the field to
him, kneeling at his side.  “You have known no love in your
life, Father, and that is no fault of your own,” he said. 
“Let me be your son, and maybe it’s not too late to heal your
heart.”

The doctor cried on him,
and I looked on in fondness as Byron helped his Father begin to
heal.  It was so beautiful.  So wonderful.

I gazed adoringly up at
Octavius.  Wonderful, like everything else in my life had
become since I had met him.

“
What now?” I asked
Octavius.  Although I was queen, I still trusted him to do
most of the thinking.

He kissed me gently. 
“Your parents will be worried.  You’re eighteen now, but not
an adult yet.  We should return to Coos Bay so you – and Rich,
and I – can finish our last year of high school.  How does
that sound?”

“
Anything you want,” I
said lovingly.  “Anything you want.”

Chapter
Fifty-Eight

There was only one thing
left to do.

Prom.

Despite the fact that I was
permanently tied to three different men, I decided that prom had to
be a one-on-one occasion.  Octavius had been the first to ask
me, so I went with him.  Rich decided to take Rita, since she
had been so nice to me at the beginning of school.  I asked
him about Jana – I was willing to bet that she'd be so happy to get
an invite that we'd be fast friends – but he said she wasn't his
type.  So much for that idea.

Byron didn't fully
understand my excitement over the dance, since he wasn't
well-versed in human rituals and American culture, but he did like
when I modeled several dress possibilities in the lab for
him.  (Why he still liked the lab was beyond me, but he said
it felt like “home.”  I didn't push it.)

Octavius picked me up at
seven on the night of the dance.  My mom made me come down the
stairs, and I felt like a clumsy doofus, but the way Octavius's
face lit up told me everything I needed to know about it.  Of
course, I could have seen it by opening the door, but I wasn't
going to ruin the mood.  My dad barely even grumbled when he
took pictures.

I gasped when we stepped
outside, and I saw the transportation Octavius had
procured.

“
A limo?” I
said.

Octavius laughed. 
“You were expecting the bike?”

“
Actually...”

“
Give me a little credit!”
he cried, waving toward the limo driver standing by the back
door.  “I'm old and have lots of money to burn.  I know
when it's appropriate to dip into the savings, so to
speak.”

I had never been in a limo
before.  Having the driver help me inside and Octavius pour me
a soda from the mini bar was more luxury than I'd ever seen. 
Octavius seemed to find my awe adorable.

“
You're the Queen of a
powerful land,” he said, “and you're overwhelmed by a
limousine?”

“
I'm also a teenage girl,”
I said, willing to play his game.  “A teenage girl that has
never ridden in a limo, no less.”

He tweaked my nose with his
index finger.  “I hope you always stay this innocent and
pure.”

I laughed.  I'm sure
it wasn't helping my angelic image that I was wearing a white dress
for pretty much the first time in my life.  It wasn't really
my thing – I thought it looked like a wedding dress – but Byron had
liked it, and Octavius and Rich had agreed, so I went with
it.

The parking lot of the
school was full when we pulled up, but with a lot of different cars
and no limos.  The kids grouped in the parking lot turned
their heads as we pulled up and stared as we walked out.  I
cringed, but Octavius dragged me toward the door.

“
You might as well get
used to the attention,” he said.  “You're ruling an entire
land now.”

“
Yes,” I said, “but I have
armies at my back when I do that.”

He laughed and opened the
door.

The cafeteria was turned
into a dance setting.  It looked exactly as it sounded: like a
school dance.  Nothing too exciting there.  The tables
were gone, and the lights were down, substituted by the whizzing
colors preferred by DJs everywhere.

After a minute of yelling,
I looked toward the stage and saw Octavius's band playing. 
Seeing all of them wearing tuxes made me laugh, especially because
they were as unwashed as always.   The bassist, Kenny,
was doing the singing, even though he sounded hoarse and flat in
comparison to Octavius.  But then, everyone would.

It felt like everyone's
eyes were on me again.  Weird.

They finished their song to
a decent amount of applause and transitioned into something with a
slower beat.  Octavius swept me into the little square that
was the floor.  We passed by Rich and Rita, who looked like
they were having a good time of their own.

“
I heard you came in a
limo
,” Rita gushed.

“
That was all Octavius,” I
said.

Rita squealed with glee,
and Rich laughed.  “I guess my BMW isn't exciting
enough.”

“
Oh, your car's great,”
Rita said.  “But a
limo
.”

Rich laughed again and
swept her away.  They danced like a brother and sister, so it
didn't bother me.  There were only so many sides to a girl,
after all.

After a little time on the
floor, with copious amounts of staring into Octavius's dazzling
eyes, I decided it was time for a bathroom break.  I told him
as much, and headed off into the deserted hallway to see if my
makeup needed touching up.  I used so little of it most of the
time that I wasn't sure I looked good.  Besides, with the way
everyone watched me, I could look like a clown and I'd never
know.

I passed by a door to the
outside.  The night seemed darker from a half-lit school,
leaving frivolity and safety behind.  The door was open, and
wind wheezed around the corner like a dying old man. 
Something about it drew me over, some feeling I had in the
night.

The wind died, and my eye
caught a silhouette.

It was too late.

Chapter
Fifty-Nine

Byron.

“
What are you doing here?”
I asked, stepping toward him with my hands outstretched.

When he came out of the
shadows, I froze.

Something had
changed.

A crazed look had entered
his eyes, and his expression was vacant, like he didn’t quite
recognize me.  All the progress his body had made in healing –
his seams growing together and the threads beginning to poke out –
seemed to have reversed, leaving gashes in his skin.

And as he strode toward me,
I felt genuine fear.

“
Byron, what are you
doing?” I whispered, only half-expecting an answer.

Then I turned and fled for
the gym, but I never made it that far.  He crashed into me,
and Byron spun me around to face him.

He recognized me now, but
he looked so
angry
.

I opened my mouth to yell
for Octavius to come help me, but before I could get out the first
syllable, Byron’s fist clenched on my throat.

He lifted, the muscles
bulging in his arm, and I kicked helplessly.  My feet couldn’t
reach the floor.

I stared deep, deep into
Byron’s eyes, and I saw in him love.  The same love that had
driven him to Join with me and become my king.  But it was as
though it had driven him mad, sending him to the edge and beyond,
and now the only way he thought he could save me would be to kill
me.

I should have hated him
then, but I couldn’t.  He was as much my creation as my
king.  The only thing I could feel was love, and a quiet
desperation that Byron wouldn’t be hurt Octavius, too—or vice
versa.

 
I spiraled into
darkness, and I only managed to gasp out three little words before
I faded entirely: “I love you…”

And then I was
gone.

Chapter Sixty

In the darkness, I
dreamt.

I soared above the ocean,
as weightless as a feather.  My own powerful wings beat above
me, carrying me effortlessly through the sky, and the wind whipped
through my hair.  I spread my arms and closed my eyes. 
The sheer joy of flight lifted me.

I climbed higher and higher
toward the swollen moon.  It was beautiful and misty, murky
through the wispy clouds, and a fine mist lay over the surface of
the water.

Without having been in that
particular place before, I knew I was in the Radiant Lands of Myth
and Faerie.  Only in such a place could I feel so
powerful.  So free.

In the distance, a dark
form rose out of the water, and I recognized it as an island. 
My island.

I landed in the midst of
the golden apple orchard, touching down gently, and I folded my
wings at my back.  They were not black, feathery wings like
those of Octavius; they were wide, delicate butterfly wings, with a
stained-glass pattern of gold and silver and red.

“
Octavius?” I called,
gazing out into the trees.  “My king, where are
you?”

There was no response, so I
began to search among the orchard, fluttering just above the
surface of the ground.

I thought I saw motion in
the distance, and I darted forward.

“
Rich?”

But it wasn’t Rich, or
Octavius.  Nor was it the Byron I knew and loved.

It was Byron. 
Dead.  Desiccated.  Collapsed on the ground beneath the
trees.

“
No,” I whispered,
“no!”

I fell by his body,
touching him all over, but I couldn’t find a pulse or any hint of
the heat we had known before.  Where had he gone?  The
machine was there – the parts of his body comprised of cadavers –
but the essence – the thing that made him Byron – the thing I loved
so much – was
gone
.

And suddenly, the orchard
around me was dark and hostile and terrifying.

“
Byron!” I cried into an
abandoned orchard.  I was suddenly alone.  So
alone.  “Byron!”

And there was no succor
from my torment.

Chapter
Sixty-One

“
Calliope? 
Calliope!”

“
No,” I moaned.  “No,
Byron!”