But for an unseelie fae, it was pleasures of the non-innocent kind that did the replenishing. It was passion that did it. And the more powerful the subject of that passion, the more magic was restored.
Caliban could not help but imagine such passion with Minerva, and the power that would become his in such an act. She was like the Fountain of Youth to a 99 year-old man. She was the promised land.
“I’m aware,” he replied simply and with finality.
But Drummar wasn’t finished with the subject. “You don’t have to have Miss Trystaine. Not yet. There are countless others who would sacrifice themselves to your needs, Caliban.”
That was an understatement.
“And I dare say they would not consider it a sacrifice,” Drummar added with a wink.
“I’m aware,” Caliban replied again testily.
Many mortal kings had possessed harems over the years. What Caliban possessed was unimaginable by comparison. Any female in his realm would lie down for him if he indicated with a glance that it was what he wished.
“What of Dahlia? She seems to be a favorite of yours. And the gods know she would transport into your arms if you so much as whispered her name.”
Caliban pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I’m aware of that, too,” he sighed. Dahlia and her sister Violet were two of the most stunningly beautiful women in his realm. They were Tuath fae, rare in the extreme. Tuath were, in fact, often referred to as “royal” fae.
They were the kind of women who were forbidden from ever stepping foot in the mortal world due to their beauty. It was a deadly kind of beauty. Too powerful, too alien. Things would happen in the footsteps of women like that.
Dahlia was the more forward of the two, seemingly intent on securing Caliban’s attentions for herself. He was well aware of her manipulations – but what did he care? He was getting what he wanted.
Violet, true to the assumed shyness of her name, could have cared less about her beauty or its effect upon males. And though she would have most certainly sacrificed herself to Caliban’s “needs,” if he’d demanded it be so, the truth was, Violet was far more interested in hiding away in the comfortable shade of a Giant Bunder Mushroom, reading books written by mortals. It confounded him…. She reminded him, in fact, a little of Minerva.
Suddenly, Violet was so much more desirable than her sister.
He could have her. He could have her for hours on end, and that beauty and magical strength of hers would no doubt aid in Caliban’s healing. It would get him by.
But….
No. Caliban’s brow furrowed, and his gut tightened. As insane as it was, the very thought of bedding another woman was not only distasteful to the Unseelie King, but slightly nauseating.
He wanted his queen, damn it.
Drummar sighed wistfully. “Ah… it’s true love, then. She’ll be the death of you. As is often the case with love.”
Caliban chose to let that comment go. It was just far too true for his tastes.
His gaze roved over the vast expanses of his beautiful, deadly realm. “She is so….” His words trailed off with his wonder, and for some unmeasured space of time, he pondered the woman that was Minerva. He knew that Selene was a painter. He’d heard that Minerva could sing like an angel. He was wagering, rather, that she could sing like a fae…. Perhaps like a mermaid, or a siren.
Every fae possessed a gift of some kind. For a Wisher, the gift would be ten-fold… as would its corresponding curse. “I’m told she attempted to take her own life once,” he whispered, his voice thin with a kind of helpless awe.
He hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but Drummar heard him all the same. “She would have unleashed all of her magic upon the world had she succeeded,” the advisor said quietly, a hint of bewilderment in his tone. “Death at the hands of a Wisher is the only thing that can release that Wish Fae’s full power all at once. Not unlike a bomb. The destruction would have been incredible.”
Caliban had heard those rumors and stories his entire life. But he’d ignored them. It did little good to talk about Wishers when none of them existed any longer, and for most of his life, he’d believed that to be the case. It was like a human discussing whether or not a T-Rex would have exploded when killed by another T-Rex. Did it really matter? In the scheme of things?
He’d always simply suspected that the tale was told amongst Wishers as a way to keep them from using their powers against each other in knee-jerk anger: “Kill me, and you go down with me!” An effective peace keeper, if ever there was one.
However, if Drummar said it was true, then it probably was.
Caliban glanced at him. The old man shook his head. “The world is fortunate she failed,” he said surely. “Vengeance needs a vessel, my boy. Anger must have its queen.”
The advisor nodded once, as if to himself, and his gaze became introspective and far-off as he turned away to head toward the room’s exit on the far side. “And so must you,” he said, just before he stepped through the door – without opening it – and disappeared somewhere on the other side.
Chapter Four
Cal knew she wasn’t sleeping. He could feel the flux in her power even as he stood there at the foot of his massive bed in the back of his jet and gazed down at the woman who was going to be the end of him. But he chose not to say anything in order to prevent an unnecessary confrontation. They were in the air, and mortals were flying the plane, and the fae gods only knew what kind of damage she would cause if he provoked her.
So he simply watched her, feeling his eyes heat up from the inside as he shrugged off his outer suit jacket, unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled them up, and then pulled off his tie. The skin on his chest stretched around the wounds she’d given him, wounds that were barely beginning to heal and that wouldn’t be healed fully for years to come. But he didn’t have time to convalesce.
This plane belonged to the human company he’d begun years ago as a cover for his existence in the mortal world. Every king had something, some kind of cover in this realm, that explained who and what they were about to mortal satisfaction. After that, any doubts were manipulated and tended to with magic, and life went on. Humans were easy that way.
But the occasional mortal “emergency” did arise, and the timing of it was never fortuitous. Such was what had occurred that morning, and Caliban had been forced to expend considerable energy casting spell upon spell over his destined mate to keep her under long enough for him to tend to the emergency.
He’d received a call from headquarters that a number of deals were very unexpectedly about to go south, and if that happened, the company would take a financial dive. It would be one that if solved with magic, would be far too obvious. Too many people were already aware of the falling stocks; this information was traded globally. There would be no correcting human perception with fae or warlock spells this time. As president and CEO of his company, his immense charm and incredibly deft social and business skill was needed to make things right and get the company back on course.
Once the Band-Aid was applied, he would figure out why the hell it had happened in the first place. It shouldn’t have. He suspected magic, in fact. And he would deal with it.
But not before dealing with more important issues.
Cal’s violet eyes took on the red tinge that warned of fire, as they so often did when his emotions were high and he was certain no one was looking. His gaze trailed over one the black silk pillowcases on the pillows where he’d placed Minerva. Long snow-white, shimmering locks of hair had spread themselves across the satiny surface like icicles in the darkness.
No one had hair like Minerva. Some had ash-blonde locks, a few Scandinavian individuals and the occasional albino. But ash-blonde hair was yellow tinged, and when the mortal aged, it became dingy, like stained teeth. Minerva’s hair reminded him of the unwritten lines of a new journal, or snow that had yet to be spoiled by footsteps. It was the shade of a dove’s feathers, the very essence of what it meant to be “an
gelic.”
For what felt like the thousandth time since he’d first looked upon her, Caliban experienced a sharp pang of doubt. He thought of his life, seeing it in a slide-show of dark scenes that played out before his mind’s eye with systematic cruelty. And he wondered how the hell he was supposed to woo someone like the fair-haired creature in his bed.
Then, perhaps due to a sudden stab of frustrated irritation and inherent, kingly stubbornness, and in exactly the manner he’d sworn he would not do, Caliban suddenly said, “I know you’re awake, Minerva.”
He cursed himself at once after speaking the words, but that was just his way. Straight into the fire with him. He was the Unholy King, after all.
“And?” she quipped back, not even bothering to open her eyes. “Did you want me to get up and cook you breakfast or something?” Her tone was filled with ice, ice that splintered into deadly shards and pierced through his nerve endings.
But despite the cold tone and the sarcastic words, there was a part of Caliban that could have jumped for joy at hearing them. It was a step forward. At least the first words out of her mouth were not a wish for his violent, bloody death.
He eyed her for a moment more, coming to a decision, and then took his very life into his own hands by taking things a step further. He rounded the bed and sat on the edge of it – not quite close enough to touch her, but most certainly on the same mattress.
Her power swelled; it was suffocating for a moment, and he worried about the plethora of charms he’d placed on the jet to keep it in the air should she decide to go postal. But everything held, and she didn’t move a muscle. After what must have been a full minute of uncertainty, probably on both ends, Caliban took a deep breath.
“Are you hungry?” This time, he placed himself in check and refrained from saying what he would normally say, which was, “You’re hungry. I want you to eat.” Being overbearing wasn’t working with Minerva – it wasn’t ever going to work. He needed to get that through his head, and there was no time like the present.
But when she did nothing but open her eyes, stare off into space, and shrug very slightly, his temper flared dangerously. This was why he normally just insisted on things. It bypassed the stubborn bullshit altogether.
Still, he reigned that in too, and said, “There is a Hollow Box on that counter there.” He gestured with a nod to a simple black box that measured approximately a cubic foot. It rested on the counter against one wall in the plush “bedroom” of the private jet. Beside it were a small refrigerator, a microwave, and a cupboard of dinnerware for normal “human” appearances.
“The Hollow Box will provide any food you like,” he explained. Hollow Boxes were fairly rare in either of the main fae realms, as they were a goblin invention. Damon Chroi, the Goblin King, had gifted this particular one to Caliban for Winter Solstice years ago. Avery had always been secretly jealous of it. And as it was in his nature, Cal was not-too-secretly quite pleased about that.
All one needed to do to use a Hollow Box was imagine what food they’d like as they touched the lid of the box, then pull off the lid – and that food would be waiting for them inside. It worked for drinks as well, taking everything from temperature to consistency into account. The result was always nothing less than perfection.
He was hoping it could serve as a sort of peace offering. Or a beginning.
There was a very long pause. In which time, Caliban thought of a million different terrible things she could do at any given moment and that he would have to do in response.
And then, finally, like a soft sigh of breeze on a hot, humid night, Minerva shifted, turned her head, and looked up at him.
Eyes like midnight searched his, and for a moment he could have sworn he saw galaxies spinning in their depths. They were the impossible indigo that did not exist in reality, that kind touched by purple and embraced by galactic light – a shimmery, glowy kind of deep, deep blue that seemed well and truly endless. He was lost at once.
Whatever he’d been about to offer, whatever he’d been planning to say, anything he might have only a second ago been prepared to cast upon her, at once slipped away as he floated, trapped, in that miasma of wonder.
“Can it make pastel rainbow mille crepe cakes with whipped cream frosting and fine strawberry compote?”
To say her sudden and quietly worded inquiry took him by surprise would have been the understatement of the millennium. It was unexpected in the extreme. For several moments, it actually left him speechless, but that was okay because it took him that long to process what it was she was asking for.
Of course the Hollow Box could make her rainbow mille crepe cake… whatever the heck it was. It could make anything she wanted. But the fact that she was asking him for it in the first place made him want to stick his head out the jet plane window, loss in air pressure and all, and hoot at the tops of his lungs like a love sick moron.
But he kept himself together with impressive and practiced expertise, turning slightly away so she couldn’t see him smile. Then he made his way to the counter, took the box, and went back to the bed. He held the box up in offering. It weighed almost nothing, as much as an empty gift box, no more.
“Why don’t you see for yourself?” he suggested softly.
Minerva watched him in very quiet contemplation for a moment before reaching up and taking the box from him. To be on the safe side, he then retreated to lean against the counter, where he crossed his legs at the ankles, and his arms over his chest.
She continued to watch him for some time, the wariness in her eyes a combination of outright distrust and slowly simmering fury. Her parents had been murdered, after all, and despite the fact that he’d made it clear to her earlier that there was no one left alive who was responsible for the timed trap left for them eons ago, she very understandably wanted revenge. Revenge flowed through her blood; it was the very basis for Wisher magic.
At last, she looked away, releasing him from his simultaneous apprehension and hope. She placed the box on her knees, stared at the top for a second, and lifted the lid.
A wonderful aroma drifted toward Caliban, and he found himself rising off the counter, his neck craning to gain a peek into the box. Minerva made it easier on him when she reached inside and pulled out a plate containing what looked like a massive wedge of pastel rainbow. The layers must have been fifty deep, nearly as thin as paper, interspersed with layers of very fine white that smelled divine. The color gradiation was more perfect than anything he’d seen created by the fae cooks of his realm.
“That’s… rainbow crepe cake?” he found himself asking.
Minerva gazed steadfastly at the aromatic pastry for some time, and Caliban was well and truly lost as to what the woman was thinking. The expression on her face was completely unreadable.
Her lips parted. And in the softest of voices, which he could now recognize was raw from screaming and crying, she said, “It is. I’ve never actually seen it in person.” She swallowed hard enough for him to hear it, then continued. “I’ve only ever seen pictures. On Pinterest and stuff.” She looked up at him, and when her eyes met his this time, a part of him, a part that had at one time been hard and cold and unyielding, uncurled and softened and died a little then and there.
“I’ve always wanted to taste it,” she told him.
Caliban had no idea what to say. Her complete and utter honesty in that moment, her fragile openness and suddenly delicate nature reminded him of diamond bubbles as hollow as the Hollow Box, and were just as wondrously surprising.
The future Unseelie Queen licked her lips – tentatively, uncertainly. Then she moved, turning on the bed and lifting the plate of cake slightly toward him. She shrugged a little, and that raw voice asked, “Do you want to share it?”
Chapter Five
When everyone had finally finished coming into the meeting room on the 65th floor of the Sears Tower, by portal or front door or transportation, and taken their seats at the massive polished oak table, Roman knew that
his instincts had been correct.
There were only twelve kings at the table that night. There were four queens. Twenty seats, nine on each side, one at each head, only seventeen of them taken. Of course, Caliban’s absence was both understandable and excused, as was Minerva Trystaine’s, his queen. So was Diana Chroi’s, an expecting mother on the verge of labor, as fae gestation periods were surprisingly fast compared to those of mortals.
Their absences weren’t what had him worried. It was the spell he’d cast prior to calling the meeting in the first place that troubled him. It verified the High Witch’s claims. But he’d been a fool to doubt her, even for a second. And from where she sat at the opposite end of the table, Lalura Chantelle’s stern gaze brooked no recourse in reminding him of that fact.
Never doubt Lalura Chantelle. Lesson learned.
However, this was hard for Roman. They were the Thirteen Kings. There was not supposed to be a force on earth strong enough to penetrate their loyalties. Much less turn them against one another.
And yet, here he was – staring at the evidence to the contrary.
The Thirteen Kings were too powerful for any spell to work in a more accurate capacity amongst them. When Lalura had approached him with her news, they’d worked together to create a spell that would have a chance at working at all. The Thirteen were enormously powerful, and that magic permeated any space they occupied to the point that there was a miasma of magic in the air, filling every nook and cranny, alleviating all sense of normalcy to the point that the beginning of one man’s magic and the end of another’s simply couldn’t be deciphered. They were frankly the most powerful men in the realms – gathered together in a single room. It was quite literally magically overwhelming.
But as Offspring of a warlock and an Akyri, vampires possessed magic of their own. Roman’s skills in the art, combined with Chantelle’s perplexingly immense capabilities, alas managed to procure a spell that would not necessarily give them the exact answers they required, but would at least verify their concerns.