Through Time-Slamming (24 page)

Hordly was wrapped in gold netting from head to toe and was lying flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. He met her gaze and she laughed. She couldn’t help it.

He spat a string of both human and Gaelic curses at her.

Hordly was trapped. She didn’t have to worry about him.

Jazz grinned in spite of the fact that she was annoyed with Trev for going off on his own. He had evidently done very well.

Then she heard their voices in the small anteroom at the far corner of the war room.

“Did you really think you could outwit and destroy the combined power of the Seelie, Daoine and Milesians? What kind of an ego do you have?” Trevor said contemptuously.

“Get it over with. If you have come to kill us, then do so. I don’t want to have to listen to your dribble.”

Jazz saw that Trevor had trapped Pestale with the Tracker’s spell; a nearly invisible wall of white magic surrounded the Dark One.

Pestale was frozen in place.

She frowned and wondered if Trevor would allow his emotion to overrule his good sense. The Queen had expressly forbidden anyone from killing Pestale if it could be helped.

Jazz’s brow went up as she watched Trevor start to plunge his Death Sword into Pestale without hesitation.

Well, that answered that question
. As she was about to try and stop him something else occurred and intervened.

The room was filled with a white light.

A scent of roses filled the air and a holograph of a woman appeared. She was lovely. Jazz knew just who it was
. Crystal, the Dark King’s consort
.

She stopped Trevor’s Death Sword inches away from Pestale’s body and clicked her tongue. “I have been watching and hoping it would not have to come to this. I dislike playing with the fates, but perhaps it is destiny. Perhaps I am meant to stop you, Trevor of Lugh, from this unwise act.”

Trevor bowed his head respectfully. Here was the reason his beloved Jazmine Decker was alive. Crystal had showed him what to do. Crystal had advised him regarding the
Twalla.
He answered, “Pestale must pay for the atrocities he has committed.”

“I agree. Ordinarily one should be punished when one commits evil. However, my lord, my King does not quite see it that way. If you kill the Dark King’s first son, the consequences would be horrendous. He has evolved, but many things about him are the same. His attachment to his creations--what he calls his sons, is in spite of his neglect unusually deep.” She paused and put up a hand. “I understand your concerns and shall address them. Pestale and Hordly will be taken to a dimension that has been renewed and adapted to hold them for eternity. It is a lovely world unlike the Dark Realm which helped to instill the evil that is in them. The Dark King recognizes his fault in their characters and wishes to make amends for them. This place will allow them to live peacefully and keep the World safe from their wicked intentions.”

“And Morrigu?” Jazz asked curiously.

“She too, with her human lover will be transported to this special dimension from which there is no escape.”

There was yet another, Crystal had not mentioned. She raised her brow and asked, “And Graely?”

“Ah, Graely is another matter, as you, my dear, already suspect.”

So saying, Crystal and the two Dark Princes vanished.

Jazz was pretty sure that when they looked for Queen Morrigu in the castle she too would be gone.

Trevor raised his Death Sword into the air with frustration. “
Not acceptable!”

Jazz stroked his chest. “Pestale, Hordly, and Morrigu are gone and I am certain we will never be bothered by them again.”

“
They need to be dead
! I wanted to be the one to send them to hell. That is the only way we won’t be bothered by them again,” Trevor spat. “Leave your enemies alive and they will return. Mark my words on this, my love.”

“I happen to agree with you, but there is nothing we can do about it Trev. Come on, we have a city to clean up,” Jazz said.

Suddenly he grabbed hold of her and held her to him. “Jazmine Decker, I need you to know that we Fae don’t have the equivalent of a heart, but I have grown one for thee. It beats steadily in my chest pounding out your name until it is all that I hear. My essence, what humans call a soul,
cries for you
, reaches for you, begs for your touch. As do my hands…as do my eyes to see
only you…”

He was so intense. The moment was so intense.

Jazz put a finger to his sensuous mouth. “And this…” she said unbuttoning his pants as she slid her hand in to find and hold his shaft, “…does this long for my touch?” A tease lit in her eyes for she wanted to lighten the moment.

He threw back his head and roared with laughter releasing all his pent up frustration. He then said as he bent to take her mouth with his, “Ah yes, it is ever longing for you. Jazmine Decker, you are my love and my everything.”

Epilogue

The two Queens spent a long time cleaning up the city of Inverness. Shop windows were repaired as though never broken.

Street signs that had been overturned were righted. Cars that had been pounded and jumped on were set to their original status.

The memory of this day was rearranged from the minds of the survivors. Instead of Unseelie, they remembered only some unknown terrorists with some kind of toxin and a brave army coming in to save the day. It was a huge task and both Prince Breslyn and Danté were enlisted to help in this job.

Aaibhe and Mab both wanted to engage Crystal in a conversation regarding the future. They needed to discuss matters with her, because speaking with the Dark King had become impossible. Crystal was nowhere to be found.

They would have to trust that the Dark King and his consort would contain the Dark Princes forever in the world they had made for them.

Jazz asked Aaibhe about Graely, because his name had not come earlier and Graely was of interest to her, though she couldn’t say why.

Aaibhe gazed at her intently as though trying to read her thoughts and then said softly that it was her belief that the Dark King and Crystal had decided to leave this Dark Prince to his own devices. She seemed confident that he was not interested in taking over the World, but that they should remain watchful in his regard.

Banzar was sentenced to many centuries of censure. The best of his magic had been removed from him. He was left with only the simplest forms of Fae magic and confined to Tir. He was still able to conjure food and maintain his grounds, but not much else.

Most of the Fae gave him a wide berth and he took on the life of a hermit.

After a time, the war was set aside as a bad memory which was best left in the past. Everyone got back to the real business of living as Fae were all about living. Living was all about music, arts, and sports.

Breslyn could not stop talking about his expected baby and Ete, but he took some time to help Trevor as he was good at many human jobs. Trevor needed him for the surprise he had planned for Jazmine Decker.

One of those jobs was hacking into a computer system which would allow Trevor to set up a history and a future for both himself and Frankie.

Together with Breslyn, they installed birth records, credit lines, a bank account, and a school record for Frankie.

They created a drivers license, a passport, and all documents either he or Frankie might need. Trevor was well pleased with the results when Breslyn slapped him on the back and told him to go for it.

Trevor felt a swelling of pride when he thought of what he had done for his beloved and for Frankie—his immediate family.

This was his gift to them. This was what he knew. They both needed a life in the human world.

He wanted that for Jazz and Frankie. He knew Jazz wanted her lost time back. He knew she wanted to work as a Marine Biologist and she wanted Frankie to experience life as a human child.

He was very proud of his efforts.

Again, with Breslyn’s help they traveled to Charleston, South Carolina and purchased a beautiful home and even constructed elaborate guest quarters for Deimne who had agreed to this scheme with the stipulation that he could come and go as he pleased.

It was January. Months after the time that Jazz was supposed to have begun her work, but Breslyn played with memories and records so that this also was repaired.

Trevor, in human Glamour stood at the flagstone walkway of their pretty Charleston Garden home and waited as Jazz and Frankie looked it over. Their mouths open with surprise and pleasure before they turned to one another and squealed.

He grinned like a fool and thought, “yes. Score one for me”.

As Frankie went inside and found Deimne in the hallway, his bent arm being offered to say, “M’lady, may I show you to your room?”

“Da, oh, da, isn’t this grand?”

Jazz turned to Trevor and said, “How did you do all this?”

He rubbed his thumb superiorly at his shoulder, “Not bad for a Fae unfamiliar with human ways, eh?” He was infused with so much love that he couldn’t hope to express it into words.

“Trevor--carry me over the threshold,” Jazz whispered.

“Aye, Breslyn told me about that one,” he grinned like a boy and picked her up.

“And Trevor,” she whispered sexily. “Deimne is going to take Frankie flying so you can carry me right to our bedroom.”

“Aye,” he said on a husky note. “
Oh aye!”

So they began their lives together.

But out there in the wind…
was Graely.

~*~

Pestale looked around his surroundings. Crystal had told him to try and be happy.

It was a lush world.

It was full with life and that life seemed willing to be subjugated.

He had immortal female shape shifters that found him desirable. He had a world that was fruitful. He had a castle he could call his own with Morrigu, her human lover, and Hordly—only Graely was missing and he wondered if Graely had been killed. No one would tell him.

Instead, all she would tell him was to try and be happy.

She thought herself a saint and he hated her.

She didn’t know how very much he hated her.

He hid it well.

She didn’t know that all he could think about and all he could dream about was usurping her power, raping, and then killing her. He wanted to leave her ravished dead body for the Dark King to find.

He wanted to challenge his father, but first he needed to find a way to escape this lush and beautiful dimension that was smothering him.

Morrigu looked content. He could kill her human, taking away her reason for staying.

Hordly too, seemed to be enjoying himself with his little harem. There was game for Hordly to hunt and take out his aggressions on and they all seemed happy. He could change that when he wanted.

Pestale plotted his revenge. This time that revenge was centered on Crystal, the Dark King’s consort.

He was going to find a way to destroy her and then his so-called father. Then there would be no one to stop him when he went after the World.

* * *

Next in the series; Through Time-Frankie

(Coming in the fall)

FRANKIE SAT AT the precipice of her favorite place in the Grampian Mountains overlooking the neat green valley below.

Over the last weeks, she had felt her eyes changing, not only in color, for they were no longer hazel. These days she had to mute them for they were a vibrant glittering copper. She couldn’t allow anyone to see that. In fact, she wore human Glamour nearly all the time when she was out and about. Her vision which had always been exceptional had improved as well, and she could see so much more than she did before.

With her human majority of eighteen, she had attained the height she would always be, five foot six, but she would continue to show aging until she was twenty-five.

Her hair also had changed color. It was still auburn but it was streaked with white gold. Her human friends accused her of frosting it with some rare coloring agent they couldn’t find and teased her for the secret.

She had secrets, secrets she could never tell her friends, secrets that kept her now in human Glamour when she was in the Human Realm.

She thought of her da and smiled, as she always did when she thought of him. He had lived thousands upon thousands of years, eons, while she had only eighteen to her name.

She sighed, but she was not unhappy, quite the opposite. Life with Jazz and Trevor and her da had been completely beautiful, exciting, and full of love. She didn’t know what she would have done without their support, especially during the changes she had gone through…and then during her last transition this past month. Her da was ecstatic, and how could she tell him, that she was not, that she wasn’t sure how to handle this last change?