Broken (19 page)

I didn’t have a moment to reconsider. An explosion rocked
the ship and all of us fell to the ground. I decided I didn’t
want to wait for more. I was still wearing the earrings, and hoped
if I removed them I’d be transported back.

I yanked them out.

I woke up with Jonathan’s arms around me. He was asleep.
It was dark in the room and a quick glance to the window told me it
was well into the night.

I lay there unsure of what to do.

There was a comfort to his body lying against mine. As
a teenager, he’d been all I could think of for so many years. And
that summer, we had slept like this many times, huddled together on
cool summer evenings.

After that unbelievable two months in his company, him being the
only true friend I’d ever had, I’d left my heart behind in
England, bruised and shattered. In all of my sixteen years, no one
had ever cared for me like he had. Geoffrey had loved me in his own
way I suppose, but what I had yearned for all my life Jonathan had
given me — unconditional love, physical touch, and whispered
words of affection. He had given it freely, asking for nothing in
return. It had just been love, pure and simple.

And here it was, as if love had been waiting for me after all
these years. My heart skipped.

What was I going to do? I didn’t think I could take
letting him love me only to lose him again. My heart couldn’t
take it. He had disappeared on me the night before I was supposed
to leave. He had never said goodbye.

I had left that summer, broken beyond repair.

I lay there, with his arm around me, warm and comforting, yet
tears slid down my face.

I was torn.

Chapter 23

When I woke I didn’t remember dreaming, which was probably
good. I was a little tired of interpreting hidden meanings, seeing
faeries, and bouncing around the past. It was good to just
sleep.

Jonathan was already up. He was perched at the window. There was
a softer look to his face.

“The sun is out,” he said. He turned back to let it
shine on his face. “And I have an idea.”

I sat up. “Oh?”

He came over to the bed. There was an almost child-like glee in
his eyes. “We should get to the house late today. And after,
I want to see if we can recruit some help.”

I waited for him to continue. What kind of help had he planned
on asking for? A unicorn? A magic flute? Maybe Merlin? I had no
idea
what
to expect any more. Quite
frankly, in a lot of ways, I couldn’t wait to get back to the
concrete jungle.

“We can go direct to the Winter Court. The Queen may be
willing to help.”

“Why?” I asked. “Whoever this Queen is, she
doesn’t owe me anything. And if Morgana is holding Chris
somewhere in the Court, wouldn’t that make her
Morgana’s ally?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Are you kidding me?
There’s constant infighting. Morgana wants to dethrone Queen
Maeve just as badly as everyone else. And the Queen seeds chaos
among the lot of them to secure her own position.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Morgana said you
were one of her own. You’re a part of this Court,
aren’t you?”

He nodded, but it was a hesitant one. “I was born into it
— it’s not my choice. I want to enter the Summer Court,
but it’s hard.” He paused then. “And I
can’t mate with a human if I ever want to enter.”

That sort of hit me like a brick.

“Oh,” was all I could manage to utter.

There was silence then. He looked at me with an awkward smile.
“So,” he said, “what do you think of my
plan?”

I kind of blinked for a moment. He couldn’t mate with a
human if he wanted to enter the Summer Court? Not that I had
immediate plans to jump into the sack with him. But in that moment,
I suppose it doused any chance of rediscovering any connection we
once had.

The problem was, with his look of innocence and regret, I almost
seemed to want him more. I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t
all that secure in his conviction either. He had trouble holding my
gaze.

I got up from the bed and looked out the window. The sun was
warm against my face.

I had to clear my head. Too much complication.

Way too much
.

“Let’s go,” I said. “You can tell me
about this Queen and her little Court along the way. I want to get
to this house of mine. I want to know what we’re looking
for.”

Jonathan leapt over the bed, hugged me, and we readied ourselves
in a hurry. We did not speak further about what had just been
implied. Rather, we hit the road once more.

As it turned out, I didn’t need to buy new shoes. My feet
were light. I felt like I could walk for days. Whatever Jonathan
had done to me had worked like a charm. It made me wonder what else he could do to me if that was just a
foot massage.

I kept stride with his quick pace while he told me of what to
expect.

“Morgana, despite the power she wields, isn’t
trusted by the Queen; or anyone else for that matter. There’s
no trust at all among the Winter Court. And Maeve rules with
fear.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. “And
we’re going to ask for her help?”

He smiled. “Strange as it seems, the Queen was kicked out
of the Summer Court by her own son because of his disdain for
humans. It’s a long story, but it’s her weakness for
humans that might help you. She’s taken many human lovers,
even some women.” He almost choked on the words.

I wasn’t sure what he was implying, but I had no immediate
plans to visit the Isle of Lesbos. I simply nodded.

“She feigns friendship with Morgana, but everyone knows
she can’t stand her. So we need to seek a private audience
with her. Asking her to turn against Morgana in front of the whole
Court won’t work. She might just hand you over to her
instead.”

We walked along a dirt path that cut through more rolling
hills.

“Okay,” I said. “And how are we going to get
past Morgana?”

“That’s just it. Morgana will be watching over
Chris. He’ll be hidden in the dungeons somewhere. She
won’t expect us to be heading to the Throne.”

“How do we get there?”

“I can go any time. You need a ring of toadstools, but
they’re easy to grow. I can make one when we get to your
home.”

“It’s not my
home
,” I said. “It’s
an old house. Who knows if it’s even standing.”

“It
will
be your home,” he said. “If we
can’t figure this out.”

“More like my prison,” I said. “I’ll end
up like Aunt Marigold.”

“You know,” he said, “she had a good life. She told me that no matter what happened, she had no regrets. But she worried
for you.”

That made me wonder about his own motives which sort of blurted
out of my mouth.

“Why
are
you helping me, by the way? Did Aunt Marigold put
you up to this?”

Jonathan looked taken aback. “Don’t you
know?” he asked.

I said nothing. I looked into his eyes and found confusion
there. I was afraid to speculate where he was coming from. I had a
suspicion, but couldn’t voice it. He couldn’t mate with
humans. It couldn’t be anything more than a promise made to a
dead woman. Nothing more. I couldn’t let it be anything
more.

“Did that summer mean nothing to you?” he asked.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. My heart couldn’t take
this.

It was broken. I was broken. I had never healed from that
summer. It had been the first time I’d ever truly loved. I
had strived for some form of tenderness throughout my childhood,
and finally found it in the arms of a seventeen year old boy. I had
tried to recover from it. The men I had been with after — the
endless charade of unrequited affection — all of it had been
a result of trying to find something I’d never had as a child,
something I’d found only once in my life — with Jonathan. I
had even tried to believe in the years after that summer that it
had been only my imagination, that perhaps Jonathan had been like
all the others, I hadn’t meant anything to him.

I lowered my head. “It meant everything to me,” I
whispered. “I never loved like that again.”

Jonathan took my face in his hands and pulled me towards him.
“Neither have I,” he said and then pressed his lips
against mine.

My head spun. My heart fluttered. I soared like I had when I was
sixteen, to a place where there was no pain or hurt, where there
was only summer bliss.

Then he pulled back, leaving his lips to hover over mine.
“I would give up the Summer Court for you,
Katherine.”

I sucked in my breath. Everything was so confusing. I
didn’t know what to do. Here we were trying to save Chris and
I was faced with this.

I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t say anything.

I kissed him again.

In the middle of those fields, with my lips pressed against his,
time almost seemed to stop. I forgot about everything. The birds
became silent, the wind stilled, and the earth itself almost seemed
to stop spinning.

He gripped my arms and pulled me closer, his body to mine. Heat
radiated off him and seeped into me like warmth from a hearth,
enveloping me. My heart melted. His tongue found mine, and I felt
like I had so many summers ago — like nothing could ever hurt
me again. All I needed was here, in this moment.

Then he pulled back again, sending a wave of cold reality to
spill over me. I grabbed him to stop from falling over. I looked
into his eyes, but instead of the warmth I expected to find, his
eyebrows were furrowed. He looked around.

“We’re being followed,” he said.

I wasn’t sure I cared, but the sensible part of me knew
that standing here in the middle of the hills pining for his lips
was ridiculous.

“Do you know who it is?” I asked, still trying to
catch my breath.

“I know how to find out,” he said. He started
walking. I kept pace until he paused at a small bush with delicate
flowers. He whispered to it. A moment later Brokk appeared.

I smiled as he waved at me with his demure little grin.
“Hello, Brokk.”

Jonathan asked the little man to find out who was following us
and let us know.

We continued on. I was tempted to look back, but resisted the
urge. That would be too obvious.

“Howlers?” I asked.

Jonathan shook his head. He took my hand as we walked. I closed
my eyes briefly as his fingers entwined with my own. His hands were
strong, yet soft.

“No,” he said. “It’s not an animal.
It’s something else. Something sentient.”

“How did you know it was there?” I asked. I
hadn’t sensed a thing. Of course, all my senses had been a
little preoccupied a few moments ago.

He smirked. “What you call your sixth sense.”

I nodded. If I had one, I was sure it had been dulled years ago
by Dr. White.

“Just pretend like we don’t know it’s there.
We’ll let Brokk do the work.”

I hoped the little guy would be safe.

We sped up, but everything inside me needed to know where we
were going, and not in the literal sense.

Would he really give up pursuing the Summer Court for me? Or
would I be left in pieces again? For that matter, what was I going
to do about Chris? My feelings for him were different, yet just as
strong.

“So what was that about not mating with a human?” I
asked. I held up our intertwined hands. “Should we be doing
this?”

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I mean what I said. I
will give it all up for you, Katherine. No one has made me feel
like you do. And I doubt anyone ever will. If we get through
this, I will bond myself to you and no other. Nymphs almost never
do that.”

“You left without saying goodbye.” I could feel the
tears well up. “Why?” My heart was flip-flopping
between the pain I had once known and the joy of reliving that
summer.

His fingers caught my tears. “I couldn’t bring
myself to watch you go. It was too hard. I was a fool, Katherine.
And I’ve had to live with the regret since.” He held me
to him. “I will give you my heart if you will have
it.”

“What about Chris?” I asked.

He squeezed my hands. “I can’t make that decision
for you.”

He left it there, and we continued on, walking in silence.

Chapter 24