Ollie, Ollie Hex 'n Free (17 page)

“And bonding with Cheney, did that change anything? Does it feel different than it did last time?”

She ran a hand over her forehead. “It’s just… I’m used to being bonded this time. Of course it feels different.”

I shook my head. “Bonds don’t feel different, Selene. They don’t get easier. Ask Cheney. He was bonded to you for years, even when you weren’t to him. It never lessened for even a moment. It was something he carried with him always. He carried you with him and he does again. Even through resentment, mourning, and believing he had lost you forever, he never stopped aching to be with you.”

She didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to. We both knew she had gotten off easy the first time. As a changeling she didn’t feel the weight of the bond and it appeared she didn’t feel it this time either.

“I love Cheney,” she said.

“I know you do,” I responded because that was also the truth. “Do you love the vampire as well?”

“Cheney is the only one I want,” she said stubbornly.

As an elf Selene had been ambitious and wild and always put herself first. As a human she was focused, introspective, and aware of those around her. It was almost as if when she became a changeling she tried to fix the things she liked least about herself—or perhaps just the things that always got her in the most trouble. Now she was falling somewhere in the middle. Her elf tendencies hadn’t vanished nor had the human ones. But what she couldn’t see was she had never been all one or the other. All of these things always lived in her, but through different portions of her life she chose to ignore half of who she was.

“You can’t conquer your feelings by ignoring them,” I said.

“Then how?”

“Only by accepting them.”

Selene looked at me. “Corbin loves me. Part of me would like to love him and maybe given time I would, but right now, I can honestly tell you I don’t.”

“I believe you.” Her face relaxed slightly. “And perhaps that is also your answer to what Corbin has to gain by making you need him. The more you need him, the harder it will be for you not to love him back.”

“So I shouldn’t let him heal me?”

“I’m not saying that. There are a lot of different versions of this world I can imagine, but all of them require you to be in it. I just want you to be aware of the situation around you.”

She traced her forefinger back and forth across her bottom lip. “I love you, Sebastian.”

I stood in spite of the pain and went to her, pressing my lips against her forehead. “As I love you,” I said.

She took my hand. “No matter what happens, I know you will be here to take care of everyone.”

“Always.”

Her eyelid twitched again. “I’ve been thinking a lot about my situation and what I will do if Corbin doesn’t come. I have a plan.” Her jaw tightened. “But no one will like it. The least of all Cheney.”

She didn’t have to tell me. I could read it in the stress on her face. It was the same way she looked when she asked me to kill her. I didn’t want to hear it, but I asked anyway. “What’s your plan?”

“If things look bad, like I’m not going to make it through labor, I’m going to break the bond with Cheney. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.” She swallowed a couple times. “But I have to do it before I’m too weak to cast.”

I shook my head. “That will assure your death. You may survive if you don’t.”

“But if I don’t and I’m not strong enough, Cheney will die too.”

I didn’t know why we were even discussing this. Selene would fine. Selene was always fine. “And that’s his choice. He knew the risk going into this.”

“Well, this is my last request. He’ll need you more ever if that happens. So will the baby.”

The door opened and Cheney came through with a smile. “And how are you feeling, my lovely wife?” His eyes flickered to our joined hands then to me. “You look like hell. Are you ready to stop being lazy?”

I tried to pull away from her, but Selene held onto me. “I feel like I was trampled by horses,” I said, giving Selene a slight nod and she let go. “But I’m always ready to work.”

“Good. I’ll meet you in my office.”

I went to the door and looked back at them once. They were smiling and laughing with each other, his hand resting on her stomach. This was how I would always remember them. No matter what happened.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Cheney as soon as Sebastian left. The two worry lines on his otherwise smooth face terrified me. Had he heard us talking? Would he be able to stop my plan?

“It’s nothing to worry about. You rest. I’ll take care of everything else.”

“If you let me stew over whatever is worrying you, it’ll be so much worse than if you just told me.”

He sighed. “There have been death threats made against everyone in the election. I have invited all the candidates to the castle to discuss the situation, but…” he shifted his gaze to the door, “I don’t know if this is the safest place for any of us anymore. Holding Jessica’s partner here means she’ll keep trying to get in and you saw what happened to Sebastian—but I don’t want to abandon the castle either.”

It seemed like death threats were a part of everyday life here. “Has the other witch spoken?”

He shook his head. “It is only a matter of time, but time is exactly what we don’t have. And these latest threats couldn’t have come at a worse time.”

“I’m sure that was on purpose.”

“Without a doubt. Everyone except us received one.”

I laughed. “No one can honestly think we would send out death threats. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. If I was going to kill someone, I certainly wouldn’t warn them I was going to do it. And if I didn’t intend to kill anyone, I wouldn’t have left myself off the list.”

“Agreed, but it has brought the Tahlik issue back to the forefront.”

My elven father, Tahlik, was murdered by no one knows who. The obvious choice was one of us, but neither of us were anywhere near him at the time of his death. Sy had been following him and even he didn’t see anyone do anything to him. However, when the man who is blackmailing you turns up dead, people talk.

I rolled my eyes. “Will that man ever not be a thorn in my side?”

“Who?” Aunt Lorelei asked, coming in then stopping. “Where did Sebastian go?”

“Cheney put him back to work,” I told her.

Aunt Lorelei looked down at a bowl of gooey-looking liquid in her hand.

“He should be in my office,” Cheney said.

Aunt Lorelei smiled. “Make sure she’s drinking her tea. I’ll be back once I give this to Sebastian.”

Cheney refilled my cup. The tea tasted like shit. The more I drank of it the worse it was. “I think she’s poisoning me,” I said.

“Well, you’re looking pretty healthy for someone who is being poisoned,” he said. “Much better than you did last night.”

“What are your plans for today?”

“We need to prepare for the candidates’ arrival as well as figure out what to do with the witch. They should be here by this evening and I would very much like to have a handle on the Jessica situation by then.”

I took of a sip of the vile tea. It made me feel slightly better, which was literally the only thing that kept me drinking it. “What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. Stay in bed so I don’t have to worry about you. That would be great.” He wrapped his arms around me and I nestled against his chest, breathing in his smell that would always be home to me. “I wish I could stay here with you.”

I wished that too. “But they need you and you can’t be everywhere. Do you think they’ll be in danger coming here? Why don’t they come now?”

“I offered guards to everyone. All of them except Kalan accepted the service. They’re campaigning and it’s too close to the election to lose a day. They’ll come tonight and hopefully then we can work out a solution.”

“Should you be campaigning too?”

Cheney rested his cheek against the top of my head. “There is no where I should be that takes me away from you. I don’t care about the election. I keep saying it, but none of you will believe me.”

He said that, but how would he really feel if we had to leave the castle? If he no longer had a say in how the future of the fae would turn out? He had been born to do this job, shaped and molded his whole life. It was part of who he was, but this was well-covered ground so I let it go. “Why didn’t Kalan want a guard? That’s sort of suspicious.”

Cheney shook his head. “Speaking of him, if we’re going to release a statement about your past, now is the time to do it.”

“Anything, if it gets me out of bed. My butt is falling asleep from sitting here.”

His finger hooked under my chin and tilted up. He kissed me softly then a little harder, making my heart swell with warmth. “No such luck. I’ll give the statement. If we have to strap you down, you will stay in bed.”

There was a knock on our door and moments later Sy came bounding through. “Did someone order a babysitter?”

I rolled my eyes and Cheney kissed me one more time, a slow lingering kiss. “I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“And you will tell me everything that happened today?”

“Absolutely.”

After Cheney left, Sy climbed up onto the bed beside me and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankles. “How are you feeling?”

“Like a prisoner in a body I hardy recognize as my own.”

“Do you always complain this much?” He gave me a crooked grin.

“Yes.” I elbowed him in the side. “Will you tell me a story, Sy?” He could never resist the chance to entertain someone.

He laughed. “Of course. What kind of story do you want?”

I waited a couple beats. “What happened to my dad?”

He gave me a too innocent look. “I told you.”

“Yeah, I know what you told me. I also know that’s not the truth. At least it’s not all of it.” I studied the muscles in his jaw as they clenched and retracted. “Come on. Tell your dying cousin a story about her father. I think I deserve at least that.”

“You’re not dying,” he said flatly as if he could somehow control it.

“I might be. We can’t find Corbin because he doesn’t want to be found to help me. And even if we do, now I don’t know if I want his help.” I recapped Sebastian’s theory to him. “So I would say my odds are getting worse by the moment.”

Sy shook his head. “You aren’t dying, but if you take a nap and rest, I will tell you a tale.”

I squished down into the covers and rolled over on my side facing him. I hadn’t pressed Sy for what really happened to Tahlik before. I chose to accept his version because the truth was I didn’t really care what happened to him. He had never shown an ounce of interest in me until Cheney and I took the crown—and then his interest mainly had to do with blackmail. Father or not, he wasn’t someone who inspired much loyalty from me.

“Once upon a time there was a young half-elf who was all alone in the world. Her mother had died and her father, the heartless cowardly charlatan, left her for dead.”

I blinked. “He gave me to Lorelei. He didn’t leave me for dead.”

“Shhhh. Are you telling this or am I? Now close your eyes.”

I obeyed, waiting for the rest.

“Her lovely aunt discovered her brother’s dastardly plan and went to retrieve the child because even if her brother didn’t want the baby, the aunt did. Lorelei also had a child of her own. A far superior male-child named Sy who was handsome, intelligent, and modest beyond compare.”

“Now I know this is fiction,” I grumbled.

“Even though the girl squalled at all hours of the day and night, often emitted noxious odors, and was far homelier than the boy, Lorelei kept her and raised the two children as siblings. The girl was irritating, often following Sy around and tattling on him at every turn, but despite his best efforts he grew particularly fond of the little ruffian.

“Then one day, after the girl had grown into her rather large head and was considered a beauty—though Sy could never see it—the girl met a man who led her to believe things about herself and those around her that were never true. He convinced her she was unwanted by anyone but him all because of the circumstances of her birth.”

“It wasn’t Jaron’s fault. Aunt Lorelei never hid from me that my father didn’t want me. I always knew that.”

Sy turned his pewter eyes to me. “You were never unwanted, Selene. Haven’t you figured that out by now? You’ve always had a place and before Jaron you knew that. Your place was with us. We never needed the rest of them because we had each other. Now stop interrupting.”

He cleared his throat. “With this man, the girl could settle for nothing less than changing the world and set out to do just that, but that was when the strangest thing of all happened. She stopped coming home and stopped seeing her family completely. Sy, as a strapping young man with a promising career ahead of him, absorbed the blow, knowing she needed to see what the world had to offer her before she could figure out what she wanted.”

As much as I wanted to argue it wasn’t like that, I bit my tongue. It was exactly like that. I allowed one incident from my past to define the rest of my life. I went looking for justice and found it in the form of Jaron. He was going to be the one who helped me get my revenge for not being wanted by the one person who it should have never been a question. But in the end I couldn’t go through with it. Without knowing it, I had fallen in love with the most privileged of the elite and it changed my life in ways I was still coming to terms with.

“But Lorelei could not escape the heartbreak of losing one of her children without so much as a word. Rumors quickly reached them that the girl was now with Prince of the Hunt and they appeared to be serious. No one who knew her could imagine what would have brought on such a change other than love. But if it was love, why hadn’t she brought him home? Was she ashamed of her family who had done nothing but offer her love?”

I closed my eyes, needing a barrier between me and his words. Emotion tightened my throat. I hadn’t thought of them at all. Sy and Lorelei at that point seemed like part of a different life. A dream, but never quite real.

“Then the horrible day came when word was sent that the girl had died. They both mourned for her. Their hearts broke daily with memories and the knowledge that one with such a bright future was extinguished far before her time. One day Sy, now even more handsome and independent from all races, received a call that the girl actually lived. His heart soared when he saw her. He didn’t care about the pain or heartbreak she put him through. The fact that his cousin, who was far more a sister than a cousin, lived was enough. This time he met the prince, who actually turned out to be a far more decent sort of fellow than he ever would have given him credit for, and Sy took pains to make sure this time he was a part of the girl’s life so she could never again disappear without a word.”

I took his hand. I had been such an idiot. He squeezed my hand back.

“However, the girl’s father also noticed how remarkable she had become over the years. He too sought out her company, but his reasons had far less to do with the girl and much more to do with strengthening his own position in the world. When he realized she wasn’t prepared to forgive him for abandoning and ignoring her, he set out to destroy the girl and everything she had sacrificed to achieve. Even the Erlking couldn’t save the girl from her own father once again treating her like disposable object.

My heart beat faster. Part of me wanted to stop him from saying whatever was going to come next. I didn’t want to know.

“Sy came up with a plan that would protect his adoptive sister once and for all from the one man who would never stop hurting her, thereby clearing away the only obstacle that could keep her from having the life she very much deserved.”