“He needs dying,” Chance answered her.
“He should be punished—death is too easy,” she said.
“What are ye saying, love?”
“I am saying that he needs to be returned to Queen Aaibhe … and then to the Dark Realm. We can’t sink to his level.”
“No. I want to see him die slowly. I mean to cut him in slow degrees and allow the poison of the Death Sword to fill his blood and give him pain over days and days …”
“Did it make it better? Did it … when you and your father … tortured the villain who killed your mother—did it make anything better?”
“That doona be the point …”
“It is … it is the point. Punish him—put him in hell! Can’t you see? He dreads it … it is the one punishment that will serve.”
Chancemont looked long at his beloved and touched her face. “Aye then … hell it is. We haven’t any time to waste now. Hold onto me—we are going to be sucked back into the portal at any moment …”
Royce couldn’t believe he had actually agreed not to kill Pestale, but when Pestale laughed and thanked her, she turned on him. “You beast. You are a heartless killer. Well, off you go back to your brothers and Morrigu … and the hell you will never escape again.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Princess … what was accomplished once may yet be again, and next time … next time, I will have my family with me … and I will come for you! Make no mistake. I will come for you!”
His words sent shivers through Royce, and she leaned into Chance, who held her and kissed the top of her head. “Let me kill him now …”
At that moment they were pulled through the portal, as was the ‘in between’ dimension, and found themselves once more in Rysdale’s portal room.
~ Epilogue ~
THE QUEEN ARRIVED with her Trackers and took custody of the Dark Prince. There was a bit of a ceremony before she led the way into the Dark Realm and gave Pestale over to the Dark King.
The Dark King’s presence was felt, not seen, as he said, “Pestale, son of hope, best of my creations, a vicious disappointment. Your memory will be erased … as were your brothers’ and Morrigu’s. It was cruel not to have done so sooner. My Crystal has made me understand. You will be given a new start … we shall see what will come of it.”
The queen watched as Pestale vanished into his father’s keeping. Then she and the Trackers returned to the Isles of Tir.
She called on Chancemont, Royce, and Trevor to attend her in her private chambers, and in full court dress all three appeared.
Once again, Lord Morgan stood at her side. Royce watched Chance’s expression as he looked from his father to the Queen of the Seelie Fae. She wanted to giggle, but she controlled herself.
“You are to be commended. I am quite proud of both you, Prince Trevor and Princess Royce.” She turned to Chancemont. “You have displayed yourself a true friend of this court, Chancemont LeBlanc. Your service to us will never be forgotten.”
“Then I ask a boon,” said Chancemont, surprising Royce, who looked at him with wide eyes.
“Of course,” said the queen with a soft smile.
“Your blessing on the union between myself and Princess Royce,” he said.
The queen looked at the princess. “Is this your wish?”
“With all my essence, it is,” Royce said, trembling and about to do something she had not done in awhile—
cry.
“Granted,” said the queen, smiling at Chance as she put her princess’s hand on his. “I shall give the party here at my castle.”
“No, it shall be at Dravo,” said Chance.
The queen frowned, and Lord Morgan said, “We will have the ceremony here in Faery, but we will then repair to our manor for the ensuing festivities.”
Queen Aaibhe smiled sweetly at him and said, “So wise, my lord, so wise …”
Royce, heedless of all these machinations, had already jumped into Chance’s arms and was covering his face in kisses.
Trevor grinned and shook his head …
And so, for them, a new beginning!
~ Not Exactly the End ~
Trevor is about to learn just how much a human can matter to him. Continue reading for an excerpt of
Through Time-Whiplash
…
Trevor’s second chance to deal with Pestale
turns complicated when he and Fios Jasmine Decker
are thrust two centuries into the past in
Through Time-Whiplash
~ Prelude ~
AAIBHE, QUEEN OF the Seelie Fae, stood by her window overlooking the rose gardens of her palace on the Seelie Fae’s Isle of Tir.
Morgan LeBlanc stood behind her, resting his chin on her fair head. She pressed back against him and whispered, “You must go.”
He turned her to him and held her chin. “My love, I can’t tell you enough what you are to me, like one of those rare blooms in your garden, exotic and beyond description.” He frowned and asked, “And why must I go?”
Sadness filled her mind, but when he touched her, he made her feel as though they could come through this together. She rubbed her head against him, torn by what she felt and what she knew she had to do.
She could see he sensed her indecision as he whispered, “Let me stay, just a bit longer.”
He was so easy to love.
An exquisite warrior, noble of heart and character.
She had not wanted to love him.
Love brought loss, and loss brought such pain …
He was the Milesian leader, and the Council would be horrified at such a union. The Queen of the Seelie Fae and the leader of the Milesians?
All her world would be shocked into censuring her. How could she lead them through the dark times ahead if they did not trust her decision making? And there would be dark times ahead.
Indeed, but how could she deny herself? She had been too lonely too long, and he … was superb in every imaginable way.
“You must go now,” she said softly.
His answer was to embrace her and kiss her long and hard, growling when he came away from that kiss to say, “I leave for you, because
you
ask it, but I—
we
—shan’t be denied much longer.”
He was upset, and he had a right, but they were from opposing forces politically. She had to be careful, as
did he
, though
he denied it
. He had told her that he and his son Chance would lead their people, no matter who they took as their lifelong mates! He had pointed out the Milesians were very pleased with Chance’s union with Princess Royce. So why not theirs?
She said, “Because I am a queen and you are, in essence, their king.”
She would have to be wise for them both. She smiled at him and touched his face. “I shall come to you as soon as I may …”
“If you don’t, I will come for you—mark me in this, Aaibhe!”
He was a dominant male, equal in strength to her, and was, she thought, just what she needed. Although her subjects loved her, and some even desired her, they were still her subjects who owed her deference and to whom she owed wise rulership. As a queen she knew and ably fulfilled her duties, but as a woman, at times she grew tired, so tired of forever leading, forever making decisions that affected her entire Realm as well as the Human Realm.
She smiled when he growled and mumbled, and then he was gone.
Aaibhe turned once more to contemplate without seeing the rare blooms he spoke of just outside her windows. They were like her feelings for Morgan—riotous, undeniably beautiful, and dangerous.
She had not felt this way in well over a thousand years.
The future, she knew, was edged in darkness. A rim of fire framed what she had seen, threatening not only her relationship with Morgan but all life, not only human life, which was forever at risk, but Seelie Fae life. She knew her Druid and Fios team would have to help her contain it once again; war seemed inevitable.
She would need her best Royals, her best Druids, and their lives would most surely be forfeit for the slightest mistake.
She had no way of knowing, no way of seeing the outcome.
Her sight, which only gave glimpses of possible events, was just that, a glimpse here and there, with no definitive answers.
Time travel, which had been denied to all Fae in the last one hundred years and limited even to her, might have allowed her to go in and tweak events to better serve both the Fae and the Human Realms, but even that was not to be.
Perhaps it had been the indiscriminate travel into time that had brought matters to such a pass?
A knock sounded at her door, and she turned to welcome one of her youngest warrior princes, Trevor.
He bowed his head and then respectfully stood, tall, erect, muscular, and more a warrior today than he had been only a few weeks ago. His flaxen hair fell about in loose curls to his shoulders, and as he raised his head, their eyes met.
She could see
he was still angry.
He looked so very much like his older brother, Danté, she thought as she stared into his deep golden eyes, but he was different, so very different. He still had to grow and learn.
Discontent glinted in the recesses of his Seelie eyes, but something else lay in their recesses, a sadness that went deep.
Trevor of Lugh must not be allowed to fall into bitterness, she thought. Pampering him wasn’t something she had the time to do any longer, nor could she waste any time teaching him what eventually he would learn. He was going to have to absorb everything he needed to know in one quick lesson.
“Trevor, sit with me.” She waved one elegant hand towards a high-backed chair, sat first, and waited.
He hesitated but did what she asked. She could see he didn’t want to. She could see he wasn’t just angry but discontent.
“Tell me,” she said, “why you are not satisfied with the results of your mission. After all, Pestale has been stopped, and in a manner of speaking he is being punished—denied all he had strived to accomplish.”
“Stopped?
For now
, but not punished. He killed Lana … and what of the humans he killed?” Trevor shook his head. “In my humble opinion, my Queen, he has gotten off too easy.”
“You do not think it is punishment enough to send him back to the Dark Realm, a place he loathed?”
“No, I do not, and, my Queen, how can you call it punishment when he has been taken by his father, made to drink from the Cauldron, and has no memory of his past deeds? No, that is not punishment, and that is not the justice I sought. If you wanted to keep him alive, you should have given him a conscience and allowed him to suffer the agonies of regret and guilt.”
“Even I cannot give one a conscience.” She clucked her tongue and waved this off. “I maintained the balance between the Realms, my Prince. The Dark King would have allowed us to put Pestale to death, yes,
but at what cost
? He would never have forgiven us. The Dark King is a complicated, unfathomable being, and we could not, cannot, afford to go to war with him. Pestale has always been his favorite creation. He seems to believe that Pestale, whom he calls his son, can be redeemed.”
“I don’t want him redeemed. I want him dead,” Trevor spat.
“Fie
—such emotion is unbecoming a Seelie prince,” Aaibhe said gently.
“I beg your pardon, my Queen,” he said, but she wasn’t sure he did.
She studied him before saying, “I have a mission for you because I, like you,
do not
believe Pestale can be redeemed simply by drinking the water of forgetfulness.” She sighed. “I will be calling on your brother, on Breslyn … on many in the days ahead. We have more to concern us than justice or revenge, much more.”
“What, my Queen?” He stared at her, and she saw his puzzlement.
“I am not sure how it will come or when, but I saw destruction, not only the complete destruction of the Human Realm, but ours as well.”
He crossed arms and shook his head. “I should have drove my Death Sword deep into his body!”
“Hush now, Trevor. Are you mine to command?” she said gravely.
He dropped his arms and then made a fist of allegiance that he pounded against his upper chest. “I am yours to command, my Queen, as ever, as always.”
She smiled softly.
“
I know
. In my vision, I saw Pestale … very much who he always was. Something has gone wrong. I do not believe he actually drank from the Cauldron. I also saw Morrigu steal something from the Dark King. Either the Dark King did not care or was not aware. In his present form, many things escape his notice. Or perhaps she took it from him eons ago before he met his human, when they were lovers. I have no way of knowing. However, she doesn’t know how to use it—
yet
. However, if she or Pestale learns how to open it and use it, there will be no stopping them, for it will open a portal through the Prison Walls large enough to allow Pestale to bring an army of his Unseelie monsters to raid our two worlds, humans and Seelie alike. Our numbers cannot compete with the hordes of Unseelie he will bring. Our only advantage is our Light Magic.”
Trevor frowned. “You have seen this—with your ‘sight’?”
“Yes, but my ability only allows me to see limited scenarios in the future, and those events don’t necessarily have to occur. Your mission, as well as all my Royals, will be to help make certain that Pestale remains where he is.” She smiled again at him. “Your brother and Z left earlier for the Highlands, where I felt a disturbance. Breslyn and Ete are just outside Dublin, where I felt another, and you must go to Killarney, where our Shee Willow and her Druid, Shayne, await your arrival.”
Trevor stood up. “As you wish, my Queen.” He frowned again. “What of Princess Aida?”
“She watches over Trinity with Willow’s father, Shee Desmond.” The queen’s hands were folded in her lap, but she wrung them at this juncture and said, “However, there is a force building at the Middle Lake—
I can feel it even now
.”
He inclined his head, and this time when he brought up his gaze she could see the bitterness had been replaced with something else:
d
etermination and fury.
“Trevor, do not allow your emotions to get in the way of your logic. The Dark Princes are cold and calculating and will think in steps. Try and do the same. Your goal is first to stop, not to kill unless it is the
only way
you can stop them.”
“
It is the only way
! If we do not kill them, they will never stop coming at us. So I tell you honestly that this time I shall drive my sword deep into his cold-blooded essence and see him draw his last breath!”