Worlds Apart (39 page)

“The tarsis. If he defies his mother, it poisons and strangles him from the inside out.”

Taylor gulped. “Niall told me if he stayed on the mortal side, he’d die. That even on this side he’s still dying, but the process is slowed.”

“Perhaps, but my wife, Vanda, makes the rules up as she goes along. Niall was a fool to trust her.”

Taylor’s hopes of the perfect ending dwindled. “Roo’s who we’re looking for. We suspect she came here by accident. Or maybe she came to plead for Niall. The stabilo told us she’d been taken to the city. I don’t think Niall had a plan for what to do, so he flew here to you.”

“You’re a three with this woman?”

“I love them both.”

Endor twisted his mouth in a half smile. “That was very quick. If my wife has bespelled you incapable of love, how do you know this is love you feel?”

“Because I can’t contemplate life without them.” The moment the words came from his mouth, Taylor knew he’d spoken the truth.

Endor laughed. “The power of true love is strong. Maybe you’re right. But what if to save Niall’s life, you have to give him up?”

Taylor’s heart stuttered to a halt. “Give him up?”

“Do you remember seeing the tarsis on him when you were boys?”

Taylor closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought so, but… He looked at Endor. “On his foot, when we were paddling in the brook. He said it was a birthmark.”

“The punishment started once his mother discovered he was seeing you. I tried to protect him by stopping you from thinking too deeply about where he came from. Perhaps I made things worse. If you’d been too curious and tried to cross to this side, things might have been very different.”

Oh God.

“His refusal to give you up has strengthened the spell’s hold. Even if you walk away from him, there’s no certainty he will survive. But if you leave and tell him you don’t love him, he has a chance.”

Taylor lost all moisture from his mouth. “I can’t do that. He’s waited so long for me to say I love him. I won’t take it back. I
do
love him. I’ll stay on this side with him.”

Endor shook his head. “The queen won’t allow it.”

Taylor clenched his fists. “My sister’s here. Why not me too?”

“Vanda doesn’t want you. She wants her youngest son back in the fold, doing her bidding, helping maintain her control over the kingdom.”

“While you sit here abdicating responsibility?”

A faint smile crossed Endor’s face. He stood and unfastened his shirt. Oh shit, another guy stripping for him? But what Taylor saw stopped the breath in his throat. Every inch of Endor’s chest and arms…
oh fuck
…and his back were covered in the same entwined marks as Niall’s.

“Do I need to take off my pants?”

Taylor shook his head.

“She’s very powerful. I thought she loved me, and chose me for who I was, what I was. The son of a noble, but no threat to her. More importantly, from a fertile family. Faeries are not known for their fertility. We live a long time. It’s nature’s way of controlling our numbers. I am one of seven. My brothers and sisters all have children. Vanda saw me only as a means of providing her with offspring. She used me, but I wasn’t supposed to leave her. I walked out sixteen years ago and the tarsis was my punishment. I’m marked with the queen’s displeasure and shunned. Once my face is covered, I’ll die. She likes her punishments to last. I asked my children to come with me when I left. None would.”

“Because from where you went to live in Rigat all those years ago, I couldn’t continue to see Taylor,” Niall said from the doorway. “Because she said if one of us left, the others would pay. Because she said she’d leave you alone if we stayed with her. I thought you might have a chance of happiness without us.”

Endor gestured to his exposed chest. “Every woman I touch increases the mark. She sends them my way and knows they won’t love me. I’m denied that comfort. I shouldn’t have married her. I loved another and she knew it.”

Niall walked across to his father. “You’re still king. You must be able to do something.”

“And where’s my army? I can’t even get rid of the tarsis. God knows I’ve tried. What chance would I have against her?”

“How do you know if you don’t confront her? People are tired of her rule. Fewer and fewer children are being born. With no communication allowed between us and other kingdoms, we decay.”

“I’ve tried. The result is not much of my skin remains untouched. I’ve reached a measure of happiness and will spend my remaining time here. I have my plants, my work, and an occasional fuck. I’m a lot closer to death than you are, boy. Priorities change.” He nodded toward the door. “Those two will tell her you’re here. Better go to her than let her come for you. Better still, send Taylor back to his world and go to the castle alone. Bargain for your third.”

Taylor opened his mouth and then closed it. He no longer knew the right thing to do. He wanted to support Niall, save Roo, and for them to live happily ever after, but he had no idea how to make that happen in a world where magic held sway.

“Do you have a shirt I can put on?” Niall asked.

His father took the one from his back and handed it over. Niall pulled it on and fastened the buttons. He bent his forehead to his father’s and put his hands on his shoulders.

“I never forgot you,” Niall said. “You always had a place in my heart.”

“And you in mine,” Endor replied. “My youngest, my bravest. You’ve grown so tall. I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry I shot at you. I didn’t realize how weak you were. I’m sorry about your wing.”

Niall moved away and beckoned to Taylor.

“Take two horses,” Endor said. “Look out for the stabilos.”

“Unlike you, they were pleased to see me.” Niall put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a peapod and tossed it to his father.

Endor gasped. “You remembered?”

“I remember everything.”

Roo was quivering by the time she reached the door. Each slide of her foot had been accompanied by hissing and slithering and the occasional flick from a tongue, but nothing had bitten her. She fumbled for the door handle and groaned in relief when she wrapped her fingers around it. It hadn’t occurred to Roo that the door wouldn’t open, which in retrospect was a bit stupid, but when she turned the handle the door moved outward.

She screamed. An honest-to-God, ear-splitting, horror-film scream because there was nothing the other side of the door. It was a sheer drop down a rocky face into a churning sea hundreds of feet below. Roo teetered on the edge of the room, her hand still locked around the handle. This didn’t make sense. Why have a door to nowhere? She looked up, down and to the side but there was only rock, though higher up she could see the rock had been smoothed and jutted out as if it supported something. Even so, there was no way she could climb to it.

Roo wondered if this was some trick, and that a path was here but invisible. Unlike Harrison Ford, she had no handful of sand to throw out to mark the route, only a handful of snakes, and no way was she touching those, apart from the fact that she didn’t want to throw them to their death. As Roo remembered her namesake’s words—
the worst thing to do was nothing
—a snake shot past her foot and out into midair. Roo’s jaw dropped and splashed into the sea. It was no more than twelve feet before the snake disappeared. Hopefully into another room. Twelve feet of invisible path.

She slipped one foot out while she still clung to the handle and her toes connected with something solid.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
Her pulse raced and she struggled to slow her breathing.
Don’t throw up. Don’t look down.
Jesus, that’s a hell of a long way down.
Roo moved her toes from side to side to calculate the width of the path. Maybe twelve inches.
Not nearly wide enough.

Now she had a choice. Go back with the snakes and try to find the other door now she had some light, or move forward and hope there was a way ahead. She let go of the handle, put her weight on her front foot and swung her back foot round in front of the other. It landed on something firm. Not the time to wobble. Nor was it the time for the snakes to decide they’d like a breath of fresh air. Roo squealed as one squirmed past her foot, but it made her next couple of steps easier. Her heart nearly stopped as she trod on its tail and then it moved fast and vanished, and she was on her own again, standing in midair.

It was hard to think when she’d been more frightened, which sort of explained why she’d not thought this through properly. She had no idea what lay ahead of her. The snakes could have slithered through a tiny gap. There might not be a room there at all. Mouth dry, stomach churning, her heart pounded with fear while the need to pee gathered pace. Even that stabilo hadn’t scared her as much as this.

When Roo slid her foot forward and only touched air, she realized there was another level of terror.
How can there not be anything there?
The snakes hadn’t fallen into the sea. She hadn’t noticed either of them swerve to one side. Arms outstretched to keep her balance, Roo tapped around with her foot and could feel nothing solid. She brought her foot back behind her and there was nothing there either.

Oh fuuuuck.
She pressed one foot against the other, realizing she was balancing on a pillar with no way of knowing how far it was to safety. Roo wasn’t into leaps of faith. She could go neither backward nor forward. Maybe this time Roosevelt wasn’t right. The worst thing wasn’t to do nothing. If she did nothing, she lived a little longer.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Hate to sound like a broken record, but what’s the plan?” Taylor asked as they neared the city wall.

“Follow my lead.” Niall tried to sound confident, but he had no clue, no idea what his mother would do and no means to protect the two mortals who were in the kingdom in direct defiance of her orders. He had nothing to barter with but his willingness to do whatever she wanted if she allowed Taylor and Roo to go home. He already knew Stephanie would
not
be going with them. The guilt of that would remain.

The city gates opened as they approached and sentries emerged. When they saw Niall, they bowed. He slipped from the horse’s back and Taylor did the same. Riding within the city was forbidden.

“Return to my father,” Niall whispered in his horse’s ear and the animal turned and cantered away, followed by Taylor’s.

Niall greeted almost everyone they passed, nodding, smiling or exchanging some pleasantry. His mother wasn’t popular and by default neither were her sons, but everyone pretended because they feared the queen’s wrath. The faeries of this kingdom wanted a chance to grow, to build different homes, to travel, but were trapped by laws that forbade new development and exploration. In keeping them confined within the city, his mother maintained her hold. Those who wished to leave were persuaded by one means or another to change their minds.

Niall and Taylor had barely entered the castle before they were surrounded by guards. Niall opened his mouth to reassure Taylor, but a voice came from behind them.

“Hello, Niall.”

Niall turned to see Oisin leaning against a doorframe.

“Where’s Roo?” Niall narrowed his eyes.

“Not far away. How are you, brother?”

Taylor tensed and Niall wrapped his fingers around his arm.

“Pissed off,” Niall replied. “Taylor, this is my oldest brother, Oisin.”

Oisin pushed himself upright and walked over. He stared at Taylor and then turned to Niall. “Our mother wants love from you.”

“Then she should show she deserves it.” And Niall knew just as well as Oisin that it wasn’t love his mother wanted, but allegiance.

“Do any of us deserve it?” Oisin sighed and headed down the corridor.

Niall beckoned Taylor to follow.

“Bow to my mother,” Niall said quietly. “Show respect at all times. You’re not welcome here and she’s within her rights to destroy you.”

Taylor exhaled.

When they walked into the throne room, conversation ceased. His mother turned and headed toward them. Niall saw Stephanie staring wide-eyed at Taylor, but Taylor hadn’t seen her, maybe hadn’t recognized her. Niall met his mother’s gaze.

I should love her, but I can’t. I should show her true allegiance and I can’t do that either.

“Niall,” she exhaled his name.

He bowed and then kissed her on each cheek.

“You brought contamination with you.” She glared at Taylor.

Taylor made a deep bow. “I’m—”

“Did I give you permission to speak? Keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you. Permanently.” The scowl faded as she looked at Niall. “You’ve had what you asked for. This is an end to it.”

“You gave me permission to live on the other side for a year. I’ve not had my year and you—”

His mother waved her hand in the air. “Yes, yes.” She turned her gaze on Taylor. “You love…this thing but weren’t allowed to show affection before it was shown to you, or speak of love until love was spoken of to you, or to reveal our secrets.” Her eyes glittered as she faced Niall.

“I kept to the agreement.”

“Then why is he here? In our world? Is that not our greatest secret?”