The Dark Queen (The Dark Queens Book 5) (16 page)

She’d been justified in her actions.

Hadn’t she?

Sitting in this tower, looking out at the lavender skyline, she was no longer so sure of herself. Of anything anymore, really. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to forget about Kingdom, about all the people who’d betrayed and hurt her through the years. She sank into the darkness she always retreated to when life became too much, but this time, the darkness wasn’t comforting her...this time, it pricked at her soul, trying to force her to acknowledge an unpleasant truth about herself.

But, just as she’d done countless times before, she quieted that still, small voice. Ignoring it’s unsettling truths, burying them deep in her consciousness, to a spot so black and void within her that she could get lost in it.

“Do not think,” she whispered, “do not think of this.”

And like she’d done so many times before she was finally able to let it go. But like a crowded closet, she knew that she was quickly reaching the tipping point before the doors were shattered and all that she’d hidden within came tumbling out. The day that happened, she had a horrible, sinking feeling that she might not survive it.

Fable had no idea how long she sat there in a trance-like pose until suddenly she grew aware of his presence. Owiot’s energy rushed through her like a shock of bright, white light. Scattering and clearing the dreck and shadows that lived within her and just as it had when she’d first seen him she took in a breath that didn’t hurt, that made her feel...free.

White magic didn’t mean the wielder was pure and faultless. What it did mean was that the practitioner tapped into the powers of nature rather than the forces of darkness.

She looked up, and his gaze was steady and oddly comforting. Even though she saw him, he rapped gently on the door as though to announce his presence without startling her.

“May I come in?” he asked in that same calm cadence of his that made her flesh tingle and her bones feel soft within her. 

Twisting her lips, she waged an internal battle with herself. She wanted to send him away, demand he leave her alone. Because that’s what she always did. When life got too confusing or hard for her, she withdrew into her tight shell. Never letting anyone in.

So why weren’t the words coming to her now? Why couldn’t she seem to form the sentence together and say it?

Frustrated with herself and tired of always being so guarded, her shoulders drooped, and she muttered, “Whatever.”

He padded softly toward her, his footsteps so silent that had she not been watching him move, she’d have thought he hadn’t budged yet. His loping graceful manner reminded her of a wolf almost—predatory and powerful, but curious.

Her damned traitorous heart began to pound rapidly in her chest. Completely against her will, she found herself fascinated by this male.

Stopping only once he’d gotten to within a few inches of her, he knelt. So that he came eye level to her and cocked his head, causing his razor-straight hair to slide like a graceful mahogany wave across his naked shoulder.

“Have I done wrong, Fable?”

She frowned hard. “What?”

His deep chocolate eyes never flinched at her cold reply.

“Why did you run from me?”

She chuckled darkly. “Run? From you? You must be mad.”

“Stop that.” His voice was intense and serious. “Do not hide behind that mask with me. I won’t allow it.”

Gobsmacked, breathless, and also chagrined—all emotions she never handled well—she straightened her shoulders, giving into the rage that always simmered just below the surface with her.

“How dare you! You don’t know me. You know nothing of—”

Grabbing her wildly, flailing hands he jerked them toward his chest. Covering her cold fingers with his warm ones, almost like a hug. And the touch of him...by the gods.

Her mouth parted just slightly, words completely lost to her.

“You are right, Fable. I do not know
you
. But you are wrong too. For I do know you. I know your kind.”

“My kind?” She lifted a shapely brow, saying the words far sharper than she’d intended to. “And what exactly does that mean?”

If he was scared of her tone, he didn’t show it. Instead, he chuckled warmly. “Do you think that I’ve lived amongst gods all my life and haven’t learned a thing or two in that time? Do you think that I cannot see that beneath the sharp tongue and spine of steel is a woman unsure of herself and who she really is?”

She gasped a tiny inhalation of sound because he was stripping her bare, exposing her worst fears and bringing them out into the light of day by simply speaking the words into being.

If anyone within her realm other than Mirror had ever spoken to her thus, he or she would have quickly been reduced to ashes. And though Owiot was a god, there were ways to hurt even him.

Ways she knew well. She could defend herself by might, by power, demand he take it all back. But all she could do was shake and tremble and damn the silent tears sliding down her cheeks.

“How?” she asked, the only word she was capable of speaking in that moment.

She’d expected him not to understand, but he smiled gently, thumb stroking the inside of her wrist and making her feel crazy, wonderful, confusing things.

“I’ve told you my names, Fable. But not what I can do, or who I am.”

She sniffed, yanking one hand out of his grip to wipe up her stupid tears. “You like kids, and you make people sad.”

A bitter laugh escaped her.

“Sort of like you’re doing to me now,” she said softly.

His eyes—so soulful and penetrating and lovely to gaze upon—finally did flinch. And immediately she felt like an arse, wanting to take the words back, wanting to say it wasn’t true, simply to spare him.

Which was a first for her. She wasn’t exactly known for sparing the feelings of others often, if ever.

“No. Though I am not surprised you think so. The truth is, that when I’m around others, I do not make them feel what they don’t already feel in some shape or fashion. Humans and even gods bear a great capacity to hide from their darkest, most troubling parts of themselves. But the sentiment is always there it’s simply buried so deep that most times they think it does not exist.”

The hand that had released her earlier, he now placed against her breast—which should have elicited one of two responses from her. Either an enraged and indignant gasp of outrage followed by a satisfying slap to his handsome face. Or a kittenish mewl of pleasure and a subtle drifting in toward him to let him know she wanted more. And though in some ways she felt both emotions, the way he held himself absolutely still and stared at her like he was actually peering into her soul, she couldn’t seem to do anything other than look back at him. Owiot wasn’t feeling her up; instead, he was covering the wild beat of her heart with his palm and forcing her to listen to her sadness.

His intense gaze literally seemed to swallow her whole, and she found herself falling into a web of stars—an infinite string of them that lit up the vacuum of night with winking pinpricks of silver dust. And as she fell she
saw
. Saw herself as a child. Happy, carefree, and much loved. Then as a young woman. Idealistic. Naïve. But still happy, still sure in the goodness of others.

Then she saw herself step through the portal between the above and the below. Saw the sparkle of joy dance through her lioness gaze, the rapturous smile take over her face as she tipped her face up toward the sun for her first inhale of air.

Her heart trembled to see that girl.

So young. So sure of herself and the world she moved in. Sure that she’d made the right choice. Even when that damnable driver had accosted her. She’d just known she’d been made for this world.

That she’d finally found the place where she belonged.

Then she saw him.

George.

Come galloping up over the hill. Wearing his crown and riding his white stallion. So handsome. So virile. Literally her knight in shining armor. Reaching a hand down to her, and inviting her to stay with him forever.

She’d been so smitten, so immediately drawn into his web that she’d never noticed what she noticed now.

The hardness to his lips. The calculating gleam in his deep blue eyes. Or the tortured gleam in his guardsman’s eyes. Charles sat astride his own mount and shook his head once. An instinctual type of movement that spoke volumes without saying a word. He’d tried to warn her off. Tried to make her leave.

But she’d been so silly, and young, and trusting.

And the moment she took George’s hand was the moment she’d sealed all their dooms.

Fable wanted to scream at Owiot to make it stop. But she was falling, falling, falling...unable to halt the perpetual slide into that darkness she’d bottled up for years.

Tearing through more images and memories.

Feeling the heavy weight of the crown upon her head the moment she’d said, “I do.”

How George had squeezed her hand, near to the point of pain, and deep in her soul, she’d known that her white knight had just become her tormentor.

The visit from Brunhilda, where under the guise of lavishing wedding gifts upon her, she’d fooled Fable into putting on that cuff. And then the slow descent into madness and pain.

Being smacked in the face by the dowager for not dressing appropriately, or saying the right thing. Brunhilda telling the rest of the castle to never approach the queen, or even so much as speak to her, upon pain of death.

Losing any potential allies she could have had. Seeing the noose slowly tighten around her and knowing she could do nothing to stop it, until finally she’d been locked away.

Discovering the truth of who George and the witch really were. Being repeatedly raped, night after night. Learning her dark craft at the hands of a wicked fairy. Growing in power and rage.

Until finally...she killed them all.

Seeing Snow’s eyes and knowing any love she’d been given by the little princess had been dashed to ribbons forever.

And then her rebirth into evil.

Fable hadn’t realized until now how even the outer had exposed the inner. When she’d first arrived at the Enchanted Forest she’d dressed in pale, light colors. But slowly her style had evolved into shadow and darkness.

Her harsh and unflinching look as she’d smite an entire village for threats against her crown and right to rule. Her cruelty.

“Stop.” She was finally able to mumble miserably; voice cracking as she pleaded with him. “Please, goddess, stop this.”

And then she was back. No longer falling through an endless parade of stars, but staring deep into molten eyes that saw far too much.

His palms came up to her face, and she waited for him to look at her in disgust. With fear.

He’d seen the very worst of her soul. Exposed it completely.

But instead, he glided his fingers down her cheeks, drying her tears as best he could.

“I see you, Fable of Seren.”

She swallowed painfully, almost too afraid to move, afraid that if she did the kindness in his gaze would finally turn to recrimination, to hate. Like it had done with so many others.

She circled his wrists with her far smaller hands, not able to close the circle. She wasn’t sure whether it was to hang onto something, or push him away. All she knew was that touching Owiot grounded her back to the present.

“I’m not worth seeing, Owiot. I fear I never have been.” There. The truth she’d buried down deep, the one she would kill to never let anyone know of it. She told it so easily to him. Fable tasted the bitter tang of self-loathing on the back of her tongue.

He shook his head, and then in a move that surprised her. He pulled her toward him. He was going to kiss her.

He was...

And then he did.

The press of his firm lips to hers rocked through her soul. Not because there was passion, or intensity, or even longing—though there was for her—but because he’d opened himself to her too and let her taste of the divine.

Of the godhood within himself.

Of the healing white light of his own soul and that of the world that surrounded them. And she
remembered.
And suddenly the words that Button had whispered to her made so much sense.

It wasn’t a point in time that she needed to remember. Rather, it was the sweet, innocence of her youth. The burning memory of what it was to be pure of heart and happy again.

The carefree joy and radiance of that light washed through her, and where the light touched the darkness fled.

Not permanently, or even forever. Not if she wouldn’t allow it. But he was showing her another way. He was showing her who she could be if she’d just let it in.

He pulled back, and the light was gone. She whimpered, wanting more. Wanting all of it.

“Look at me, dark queen.”

She did. No longer able to fight her pull to him.

And she gasped, because the sadness, the pain that had been inside of her, was now reflected in the depths of his chocolate eyes.

“What did you do?” she breathed, touching her fingers to the corner of his eyes as she watched her terrible memories play through his gaze like a rolling image.

“I took it inside of me, Fable.”

“No. Give it back. You cannot handle what I’ve done, it will hurt you, it would ruin—”

His smile was gentle. “I did not take it all, Fable, but I wished to give you at least a little peace.”

“Why?” she asked again because she was so very confused by him. He did not know her, and yet he’d done this for her. He’d taken out her darkness. He let her breathe again. “Why, Owiot? Why did you do this?”

“Because,” he said after a moment, “we all deserve to be happy sometimes.”

~*~

Owiot

G
ritting his teeth against the unbearable pressure of her demons waging battle inside of him, Owiot had no choice but to leave her there. He’d sensed he’d pushed her as far as she was capable. She sat on that bed, bathed in shadow and beauty, and staring unblinkingly at the wall ahead of her and his heart ached to stay by her side.

Owiot could not understand his irresistible draw to her, or his need to save her from herself. He’d promised himself after the last time that he’d never do this again. Never again allow his emotions to gain the upper hand on his common sense, but when she’d abandoned him to flee like a terrified rabbit from a prowling coyote, he’d had no choice but to follow.