AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Magic, like individual creativity, is shaped by the person who wields it—and is limited only by theirimagination.
~Big Book of Fairyland, “Rules ofMagic”
The inhuman soundof Queen Bitch’s fury reverberated through the air and across my nerves like aluminum tapping a mercury filling.
Rogue kept hold of me though, mouth hot on mine.Steady.
His thought in my head, unvoiced. Barely discernible from my own.
Yes.
It seemed wrong to keep kissing under the circumstances, but the days away from his touch had left me hungry for him, as if he supplied some vital vitamin I withered without. The sound faded away, though it lingered in the bones of my skull, my heart pounding to the sonic boom of utter rage.
Rogue broke the kiss then and smiled at me. A rare smile of pure and utter delight, unreserved, almost innocently joyful. “It worked.”
“The marrying each other spell?”
“Yes. The first step in her destruction.”
“That’s why she’s so angry.”
“And afraid. Never mistake but that she’s afraid now.”
“Why didn’t she try to stop this?”
“Because, powerful Gwynn, she didn’t know it was possible.”
“But you did.”
“I hoped. You showed me the way.”
I did? “I don’t remem—”
A roar went up from the dragons circling above, a clear warning.Better get everyone inside.
I wasn’t sure if it was my thought or his—and ultimately it didn’t matter, though this would take serious getting used to—and as one we turned, crossed the water and told our guests to run for their lives. Most of them already were. The scorching compression of Titania’s imminent arrival thickened the atmosphere, vaporizing the snowflakes before they fell.
Everyone knew what her advent meant and none wanted to face it.
“So much for the receiving line,” I muttered, feeling Rogue’s grimly amused response.
The first of the guests poured across the drawbridge, seeking the castle’s sheltering walls.
We stayed back, by mutual accord, to draw Titania’s ire away. Oddly, though I should have been afraid, I wasn’t. Maybe I’d gained some of Rogue’s insouciance, born of invulnerable immortality, but I felt only the keen edge of readiness.
Bring it, bitch.
Darling Hercules stayed with us, parking himself at my ankle.Goliath,he demanded, so I gave it to him, pulling on the magic—mine, but with blue-black shadows—and made him as big as the dragons coming to land around us. They dropped from the sky, fast as lightning, landing with puffs of snow that made them seem light as dandelion fluff. For a moment, I reflexively cringed, but they turned their great scaly backs to us, forming a defensive perimeter.
I fretted that, by enclosing us in their circle, they’d create a magic-null field inside, crippling us. But Goliath retained the great size I’d gifted him and his sentient intelligence. The lead dragon, my dragon, if I wasn’t mistaken, glanced back at me with what could only be a smirk. Oh yeah, they could totally direct it.
The ground shivered and Titania appeared, outside the circle of dragons. She looked as she had before I melted her face—exquisitely lovely in an inhuman way. Like the faces of angels too terrible to look upon. For once not naked, she wore a cloak of fire, oranges and reds teeming in it, swathing her body, hair like silver tinsel trailing down it and dragging through the snow. Leaving it melted in her wake.
“Am I late for the wedding?” she asked. Her voice rarely seemed to be an actual sound. Instead, like the sonic boom, it crept inside my head, insistent. In my dream I’d seen her as a parasitic wasp, the kind that immobilizes prey and lays her eggs in it, to feed on the haplessly fresh victim when they hatched.
The image dissolved, replaced by Rogue’s unmistakable presence. Buffering me.
“I’m afraid you missed the ceremony, my queen,” Rogue spoke with courtesy, but without the obsequious bowing he’d shown before. Power had shifted. She observed it, seeming ready to pop with fury. “You are, of course, welcome to join in the reception, feast and celebration.”
