Odd Melody (Odd Series Book 2) (7 page)

“Thanks! What a fantastic honor. I’ll pass.” I put on a cheerful smile, the same smile I used when a Jehovah’s Witness came to the door. I felt kind of the same, too. Not their fault. They believed in what they offered. I just didn’t buy it.

“You are my heir.” She sounded reasonable even when she spouted the irrational.

“Mom, you are immortal, you don't really need an heir. Besides, isn't second cousin Kierra going to be your heir in my stead? Won't she be bummed out if you vote me back on the island?”

Mom’s brows furrowed. She never did get pop culture references. She didn't watch cable. “What we do, we do for the good of the family, not an individual. Kierra would want what is best for the entire race.”

I glanced over at where I had spotted Kierra. A full-blooded fairy like Mom, my cousin had long black hair and eyes that shone like jewels in a perfect, tiny face. Her head bent in acceptance, but she did not look thrilled. She didn’t say anything though. I stood alone on the battle with the Queen front.

“Well, the queen has to marry someone among the Faerie, and I was already married, so I guess I can't. Sorry. You didn't think this through.”

Glad I had paid attention to all those stupid laws they taught me, I smiled, confidant I had Mom on the ropes.
Ha! I thought of a rule that your council missed.
 

My mother just looked at me. A small smile played around her lips. A rainbow formed over the endless golden sea of fairie. That sea which flowed below Lake Erie. I looked at the brilliant rainbow. The raft reflected the mood of the queen. Not a good sign.

I looked back at mother.

She definitely smiled at me. “Do you remember Cousin Clancy?”

Cousin Clancy had married a mortal. After they divorced, the council declared the marriage null and void as if it had never happened because, really, mortals aren't people. Their lives span so short a time compared to the average fairy that it’s like having a pet piece of toilet paper. Cousin Clancy’s arranged marriage to a red cap was reinstated. When her husband later killed her, the scandal lingered for years.

I blinked.
Oh crap
.
Think. Did I have an arranged marriage? Yes…to whom?
 

“You are no longer married to the mortal, so I have decided to reinforce your arranged marriage.” Her voice, although still sounding like bells, rang oddly flat, reminding me in an uncomfortable way of that digital voice from Portal.

“The hell you have!” Oh, this was a bad Monday. Bad, bad, bad Monday. When, precisely had my life gone so far down the paranormal crapper? A fairy engagement? Oh, not good. That was not what I needed. I did a quick rehash of the men in my life. I had a vampire boyfriend and a whatever-the-hell-Chance-was, wanna-be soulmate. I already had one guy more than any girl needed if she wanted to sleep. And good old mom wanted to throw another in the mix.
Nice
.

Who exactly was my fiancé, anyway? I looked at her.

She smirked.

I bit my lip. To ask suggested that I would allow it all to happen. I had no intention of allowing it. At least I was pretty sure I wasn’t, not if I could think of a way to stop it without getting killed.

I quickly reviewed mental notes. Who was I engaged to? It seemed like something that I should have remembered. But my arranged marriage had become such a joke in the fairie world that I didn’t think anyone had taken it seriously. Or maybe just I hadn’t. I really was not the arranged marriage type. I was too…much of an ass.

I fell back to that consistent talent. “I won’t do anything. You can’t make me. Isn’t there some ceremonial crap that I would have to do and all before I could join the Fairy Council after abjuring it?”

My mother’s chief butt kisser, McNair, stepped out of her shadow, where he generally lurked. “In light of your preference for top-side dwelling…” He left the half-finished statement hanging.

I quickly translated this to mean that since I had no intention of living down there, and was bloody unlikely to take part in whatever mumbo-jumbo they had planned to make me do, where I wouldn‘t
be
—

McNair smiled a sickeningly confident smile. “Your mother has completed all necessary tasks in your absence for you.”

Which meant that my mom was the queen and what she said went. Fan-freaking-tastic. They had voted me back on the island and not told me about it. They had even found a way to do it without letting me know. Told you fairies sucked. They even broke their own rules.

Okay, being a card-carrying member of the Fairy Council, was not good for my continued health and well-being. On so many levels. Once my mother announced that I had happily realigned with the council and come to power, as planned—as if it had been planned—she would set me up to get killed, though she would not look at it like that.

I bit my lip.
Oh, bad, bad Monday
. I closed my eyes.

“Avery.” My mother’s voice rang out, shattering the silence.

I opened my eyes.
Oh, shit
. Yup. That was who I was engaged to. Avery Montgomery.

Avery Montgomery, the jock. Of the same ilk as Brad Pitt or say Jude Law in the looks department, he had shiny black hair and skin so pure and perfect any actor would kill for it. Sapphire eyes sparkled at me full of mischief or mayhem, I wasn’t sure which. Broad shoulders tapered down to lean hips that reflected years of perfectly proportioned genetics. The combination made him irresistible to most females, and his arrogant stance said he knew it. However, though Avery might be the picture of full fairy hotness, he barely topped four foot tall.

Really not my thing, not that I have something against short men or anything. Full fairy cockiness didn’t sit well either. He had that in spades. I looked at Avery and remembered that his height had helped me not take the whole engagement thing seriously in the first place. Mom had meant well, don’t get me wrong. He was, amongst our kind, a fantastic catch. The perfect man. Perfect looks, reputedly a great lover, the works. But I had been raised both in and out of the raft and my tastes had developed somewhat…un-Fae. I wanted a man I could look up to, not one I could carry if he got tired. He was like a pocket pet.

I turned to my mother and glared. I had to come up with another loophole, and fast, to get myself out of being shackled to what looked like an attractive action figure. As the queen, Mom could call an entire kingdom down on my head. I admit I did not know the extent of my new powers. Somehow, I doubted I could take them all on by myself. I closed my eyes and a voice spoke in my head.
Have a little faith
.

Chance
.

I opened my eyes and he appeared, there, smack dab in the middle of Fairie. For one, it had not occurred to me to call him to Fairie, as I did not know he could go there. Only the fae, the goblin, fairy, the creatures of true magic could enter the raft. For another, why would I call him, of all people, for help?

I hated myself a little for being so happy to see him. His red curls glistened like newly shed blood in the strange underground sun. Another person would have probably thought something poetic like garnets, but Chance was a predator, even if I wasn’t sure what type, so pretty stones would not fit even my mental description of him. Just like his eyes weren’t emeralds, but the bottoms of beer bottles. He stood there, bare inches from me, his hair moving in that odd underground magical wind, as if I had called him into being with my fear.

I wondered if he was real or some fabrication of my panicked brain, until I heard my mother shout, “Guards!”

Chance moved behind me and we stood defensively, back to back. I couldn’t take the fairy on my own, but my odds increased greatly with him behind me.

So long as he decided to stay on my side this time.

CHAPTER Five

Back to back with Chance, I could hardly feel the thrum of life from him. It made me feel safer to have him there, but I decided, as the denizens of fairy closed in to attack, that it would hardly matter as we were about to die.

My mother pushed to the front of the crowd that had moved to surround us. She held her head high, and I noticed how very young she looked. I probably looked older than she did. Or, at least I had prior to coming to power.

“Who are you?” She demanded an answer in a tone only a woman who had ruled supreme for a millennia could have used.

“He’s Chance.”

At the same time Chance answered, “Her soul mate.”

My mother lifted her chin and looked down her nose at us, a considerable feat since she was shorter than I was, and far shorter than Chance.

“Impossible.” Her voice rang out like wind chimes. “Janie is something that has never existed in the natural world. The principal of soul mates suggests that—”

Chance interrupted her, after spinning and moving me behind him, “That principal suggests a mate for us all. I have waited longer than you have breathed, Queen of Goblin Kind, for her to come to me.”

I stared at the strange assortment of creatures that had been facing off with Chance before he had spun us to switch positions. At the front of the pack stood a small long nosed elf and a hobgoblin with green skin and warts. They and other assorted creatures stared at me with almost as much surprise as I felt looking at them.

When Chance’s speech registered, I spun to thump him on the back with one fist.

He glared at me over one shoulder.

“I have not come to you.” Lifting my brows at him, I dared him to argue.

He gave me a look that reminded me that we were on the same side. It told, rather than asked, me to clam up.

I shoved past him to glare at my mother. Avery stood behind her. He was almost as tall as my mother, as I said, height not being an attractive feature amongst their kind. His hair remained thick as I remembered and, as an immortal, he had not aged. His eyes had a glittering sheen to them and his very skin seemed to call me. Fucking fairies, I thought again. He tried to use glamour to diffuse the situation. Typical, just typical.

I glared harder at my mother and told her the truth. “You cannot force me to marry anyone. I will fight you and any you send for me. You may manage to destroy me, but what you seek to accomplish will be destroyed as well. How you thought to force an arranged marriage on me, or even force me back into Fairie, is just—”

My mother stepped closer with a glare. “I wouldn’t try to tell me what I can and cannot do if I were you, Janie.”

Power began to gather around my mother like heat waves. I sucked in a breath and held it.

Chance’s hands rested on my shoulders and the cord tugged at my middle. I tried to snap it off, to ignore him, but I felt vulnerable and he seemed so much stronger. I resisted leaning on him when I needed so much to lean. I couldn’t make the connection snap off clean. Lingering tendrils remained to lick at my soul, or so it felt. Almost as if he had merged to become a part of me. Like I could lie back, physically and emotionally, and he would catch me. I wasn’t sure I appreciated the sensation.

A part of me wanted to rely on him. I wanted none of this to happen, but then again, none of that was exactly true because I wanted Vance too. To have Vance, I needed all of this craziness. Without it I would never be free of my mother’s control, could never choose who I would love or not. My mother continued gathering her power. Avery lurked behind her like a dark, shining shadow. I studied her glittering throng while Chance held my arms, solid if unbidden support.

“You will at least try out the engagement, Janie, soul mate or no, for one week or I will bring my granddaughter here to stay. She would be safer in the Court than in the land of mortals.”

I sucked in a breath and glared at her. A week. That wasn’t long. “One week?” A week I could do to protect my daughter.

“If after one week you still do not want to marry Avery, then you do not have to. I personally believe if you take him topside with you, you will see that like calls to like. He would make you far happier than this towering—what the hell is he anyway?” Her wind chime voice went sharp at the end and she peered at Chance from under her nearly eyelash free eyes.

I looked over my shoulder at him. Framed against an impossible sky, surrounded by creatures that could not be, things from every nightmare and dream that anyone had ever had, Chance stood more alien than any of them. I smiled at him, he winked back, and I sighed. “I haven’t exactly figured out what he is yet. And he won’t tell.”

He nodded and quirked a brow at the answer. I apparently had gotten it right.

“One week with him topside, and I can bring him back, no harm no foul, right? The engagement will be broken, and you’ll release me from the Fairy Court? Forever?” I tried to word it in a way that she could not back out. Not that it would matter—fairies always found a loophole.

My mother sighed and her power uncoiled a little. She appeared to be thinking. Avery stood, puffing his chest a little. Apparently, he felt the conversation had swung his way. I was not terribly happy with the way things had developed, but I could perhaps control the situation within established limits. I had resisted Chance, who I actually felt physically drawn to, for very nearly a month since we’d first met. Avery would be a piece of cake, compared to that connection. I could not see myself feeling physically or otherwise attracted to a Ken doll, even if he was a very nice looking tiny plastic man.

“If I return him in a week, do we have an agreement? Here, in front of your council?”

If she agreed in front of the court, she would be forsworn. A fairy, queen or not, forsworn, could be hunted down for not keeping his or her word. If she accepted her own terms, I could get out of both the engagement and the court just by putting up with the mini man for a week. Not a bad deal.

“Janie, I don’t think this is a good idea.” Chance tried to stop me but my mother was faster.