Moon's Flower: Book 6 (Kingdom Series) (15 page)

Her face was so earnest and pleading, and it broke Danika’s heart, because as much as she wished it wasn’t so. Sometimes real life didn’t come with the happily ever after of their stories.

Mouth tipping just slightly, she spread her arms. “Come give me a hug, little one.”

The child moved into her arms. Her words were muffled as she spoke against Danika’s chest. “That story was awful.”

Most of the fairy children had flown back to the glen by the time the two separated, but a few remained behind, eyes mournful and tearing, staring up at the moon with a whole new appreciation.

“But underneath it all,” Danika rubbed her hair, “remember that it was a story of love. I know Calanthe could never regret her time spent with her love, and Jericho, I am sure, did not.”

“How can you know that?” The tiger lily pulled away, her amber eyes pleading for Danika to make this right.

“Because, child, true love is rare and once felt, it marks your soul forever.” She tapped her heart. “Though apart, the two love each other madly, even to this day. Now…” she clapped her hands and cleared her throat. “It really is time for bed. I’ve kept you all up much too late.”

“Genevieve,” she glanced at the sprite who was still mopping up tears from the corners of her eyes.

“What?” Her lips tugged downwards.

“Please take the child home. You two can hug it out for all I care. But truly.” She handed the girl off to the sprite and frowned, never expecting that the others would take it quite so much to heart. None of them had even wanted to hear the story of Calanthe and her Romeo in the beginning.

But now little feet were slow to get up and fly off. As if they hated the thought of leaving the lovers to the fate they’d shared three hundred years ago.

In moments the woods were finally cleared and she heaved a weary sigh. Perhaps storytelling was not her forte after all.

“My word, what a dreadfully sad story, Danika.”

Danika whirled at the sound of the melodious voice drifting from on high. Heart thumping wildly in her chest, she beamed at Esmerelda. The Green was smiling down at her with a cat-ate-the-canary grin.

“Too bad it was so full of half-truths.”

She laughed. “Esmerelda. I’ve been waiting for you.”

Danika held out her hands as she waited for the new Green to drift down from the tree limb. Her bright green eyes gleamed like beacons in the night. “You never were really good at telling the whole truth, were you, dear?”

She shrugged and stared at her clipped nails. “I do not know what you mean.”

Giant butterfly wings flapped behind The Green’s ivy cloaked body. Glints of moonlight stole across her pale form, making her almost appear to shimmer as she moved.

Knowing eyes glinted with the knowledge that Danika had kept hidden from the children. Knowledge that made her squirm from foot to foot.

“Though I do believe the tiger lily finally figured out Calanthe was really you.”

Danika scoffed. “Bah,” she swatted her hand through the air. “I sent her off with Gene. How would it look if they realized I’d spent the last two hours of the night regaling them with a tale of my former life and love?” The last was said wistfully.

“I knew it!” The child like voice could belong to none other than Genevieve. Spine going ramrod straight, Danika pursed her lips and peered over her shoulder.

Not only was the sprite headed her way, but she still had the tiger lily in tow, whose eyes were now wide as saucers.

“You’re Calanthe?” the child squeaked, “but you’re so old.” Her button nose wrinkled.

Sighing, Danika glared at the now chuckling Esmerelda. “Bloody hell,” she growled, “and that is why I did not want to tell them. Do you see?” She pointed at the wee fairy who was at this very moment circling her body like a scientist studying an extinct specimen.

Genevieve cocked her head. “You said Calanthe was made to transform into a flower. But if you’re Calanthe, then you’re no flower at all. Why?”

She hurled the question like an accusation and Danika grimaced, this was exactly why she’d fudged the truth a little. To prevent annoying and prying questions.

“I was made to transform,” she spread her arms. This matronly, goody-goody woman
was
who Danika was now, but it wasn’t who Danika had always been.

“And your name is not, Calanthe?” the tiger lily peered up at her, as if by sheer force of will alone she could pry the truth from Dani.

Huffing, Danika shot daggers at The Green. “Are you going to help me here?”

“Oh no,” Esmerelda plopped her butt onto the edge of a vacated stump, “you’re doing a bloody fine job of it.”

Sticking out her tongue, she rolled her eyes. “Fine. You want to know the truth, here it is. I was born Calanthe Danika Rose. Most of what I told you was true and the woman you saw in the clouds, that woman was me.”

“What happened to June?”

Danika snorted. “Well, June, wasn’t quite as virtuous as I painted her out to be in the tale. I found out in the end that jealousy had led her to The Blue. Because while I was pining away for my love, she’d developed an infatuation with a dwarf across the stream. By telling Galeta about me, she was able to hide her midnight excursions. Of course, in the end the council decided to banish the law that fairies could not fall in love as the policy was antiquated at best.”

“Why did you not just say that about June? I actually felt bad for her,” the tiger lily growled.

“Because,” Danika huffed, “I was trying to teach a life lesson. What would I teach you if you knew that June was just as manipulative as the rest of them? Hmm? Besides,” she swished her wrist, “everyone knows a fairy tale isn’t always the full truth. Truths can be ugly and painful and sometimes that is not what one should hear. I wanted June to be remembered as something other than petty and cruel. Is it wrong of me?”

“No, but how you could turn her into a sympathetic character after what she did to you, I am sorry, Danika,” Genevieve’s voice grew gruff, her face twitching with anger. Which might have been funny that the grumpy sprite was suddenly taking Danika’s side, but this had been more than a mere bedtime story, and while some of the facts had been switched around, the majority of it had been true.

Talking about it, without the benefit of embellishments made the story so much more painful. Made the constant yearning and dull ache that she’d learned to shove away into the most private corners of her mind, come out and grow. Fester and spread like a malignancy, so that tears gathered hot in her eyes and made it almost unbearable to breathe.

She still loved Jericho. Always would.

“Being apart from him is difficult, isn’t it?” The child’s voice was soothing, comforting, and Danika couldn’t help but smile in response. The little fairy was intuitive, and would make a brilliant godmother someday.

She nodded. “Intensely. Most days,” she sniffed and wiped at the heavy drops threatening to roll down her cheeks, “I can forget and move on.”

“So why tonight?” Genevieve asked softly, all traces of rancor gone from her cherubic face.

“That one, I can answer,” Esmerelda smiled softly and Danika shuddered in relief because The Green had given her enough time to gather her flustered emotions together.

“Because tonight is their three-hundredth anniversary.”

“Wait?” Gene and the tiger lily spoke breathlessly at once.

Esmerelda nodded as Danika realized the conclusion they’d all come to at once. “It’s been five hundred years since his enslavement as the Man in the Moon,” The Green spoke the thought they were all thinking.

“Are you free of the curse then?” The tiger lily grasped hold of Danika’s hand, shaking it hard.

Nibbling onto the corner of her lip, Danika nodded. “Aye, he is free to enjoy his once a month hiatus. But as I’ve said, the price of our love was that he would forever remain The Man in the Moon, he cannot be freed of its power and I, unfortunately, am not free of my curse.”

“Then he might come for you!” The tiger lily bounced on her toes, her excitement so palpable that the flowers danced. In another year the little fairy would be extremely impressive, perhaps Danika could see about training her in the art of being a godmother soon.

In the end helping others to know love hadn’t been so bad at all. Part of the curse, the part she’d not spoken of, was not only that Calanthe would turn into Danika a matronly grandmother of a fairy, but that she was also cursed to become a godmother. A fate, she’d considered at the time, to be so much worse than death. To have to foster and build love for others while her heart was a shattered wreck had been cruel beyond imagining. Add to that, that Galeta thought it would be pure fun to make Danika charged with tasks of finding mates for the villains of their world. It’d seemed an impossible fate at the time, but over the decades she’d not only grown to enjoy her work, she loved her work, and Galeta’s curse had morphed from punishment, to pleasure. In some ways, the work had made Danika grow up and become a better fairy. Not that she would ever thank Galeta for what she’d done, the fairy hadn’t had her best interests at heart that was for sure.

“I hope he doesn’t,” Danika whispered it softly. “Look at me. I look nothing like the woman he fell in love with.”

Esmerelda glided forward then and grabbed hold of both of Danika’s hands. “I know that if Miriam could have been here now, she would tell you as I am, that you look lovely, Danika. Changed form or not. But you know you do not have to retain this form. You’ve shown your true face in the past.”

Brows dipping, Danika shook her head. “Aye, but I could never sustain the form long. And call me shallow if you must, but I could not stand the thought of him touching this old female flesh. Not when he’ll look just the same and as devastatingly handsome as before.”

“Did you not know, Calanthe, that tonight is a night of magic?” The man’s voice cutting suddenly through the night made Danika’s heart squeeze painfully.

She was afraid to move, to blink, or even to take in a breath, for fear that if she did what she thought she heard would vanish.

And then she was forcefully reminded of her fat rolls, the blond hair that appeared more gray nowadays, the wrinkled and lined skin. This body was not the one he’d fallen in love with.

Unlike in the story where Jericho had stayed and touched the petals of Calanthe all the night long, the truth was, he’d been banished before Galeta had cursed Danika to this form. He’d not seen her as she was now and the very thought of it made her break out in a sweat.

Her lips parted as she stood very, very still.

“Will you not turn to look at me?” He said in that shivery drawl of his that had never failed to make her knees turn weak.

Eyes darting to the three women still in front of her, Danika pleaded silently for their help. But Esmerelda merely planted a quick kiss on her brow, and this time when Genevieve took the tiger lily away, she knew they’d really returned back to the glen.

Which meant it was just her and her beautiful Jericho.

Alone.

In the woods.

So very, very alone…

She gulped.

The brush of wind against her back was her only warning, before a set of hands clamped down onto her shoulders. Strong, male hands. Glancing at them from the corners of her eyes, she noticed how firm they were. How smooth his skin still was.

“Jer…icho,” she breathed, stomach twisting and knotting with nerves.

“Won’t you look at me?”

A tear of shame leaked from her eye. “I… I can’t.”

He sighed and then before she knew it, she was being twirled and his eyes were the rich brown of molten chocolate, and they were greedily licking at her face. Devouring her, and she couldn’t understand why, couldn’t believe that he wasn’t disgusted by this old, withered frame Galeta had cursed her with.

His touched was tender as he trailed his thumb along the curve of her jaw. “I am so grateful The Blue did not curse you to remain a flower, because then I could never have watched what you have become. The love, our love, that you helped bring to others.”

Swallowing was impossibly difficult, deciding she either had to cry and let it go, or try to continue swallowing her emotions but making her face get all twisty and ugly in the process, she cried. Gave herself over to her emotions and threw her arms around his neck.

“How can you still love me? I am old, and so ugly. I could be your great-aunt.”

Jericho’s laughter rumbled through her chest. “I’ve watched you for eons my lovely, Calanthe, and have only ever fallen more deeply, and madly in love. No matter what June, or Siria, or even Galeta did, our love was strong and true. I carried the memories of our last night in my heart, it’s what’s kept me strong.”

He held on to her as she cried it all out. All the years of separation and for what, because they’d dared to fall in love? That the sun could not understand that Jericho didn’t want her, would never want her, because he loved another. June’s petty jealousy, or Galeta’s harsh punishments… all the years she’d shoved it all away, she released it, let it go. And meanwhile Jericho was patient, murmuring endearments in her ear as he rubbed her back up and down over and over.

Finally, she chuckled through the tears. “This was not the way I would have wished to greet you. I cannot stand, that you look as beautiful as you once did and I must remain in this form forever.”

“As I said before, my luscious fairy, tonight is a night for magic…” And so saying, he tipped her chin up and stole the very breath from her lungs with an intensely passionate kiss.

His tongue was greedy as he slipped it between her lips, forcing her to part them so that he could duel with her own.

And a powerful feeling washed over Danika, a shivering tingle that spread from her toes, to her belly, and up through the crown of her head. At once, she knew something strange had just happened.

Breaking the kiss, her eyes widened as she stared down at herself. She’d only ever been able to maintain Calanthe’s beauty for a moment before the power of the curse would force her to return to her now familiar guise.

But she had not called the change.

She looked up and sucked in a sharp breath because Jericho was glowing from the light of the moon and he was sharing that light with her.