Their Unexpected Mate [Paranormal Protection Unit] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (18 page)

Thinking that she had survived the worst of it, she was next approached by a woman that, well, looked more than a little strange. It was as if she were dirty, but clean at the same time. The woman didn’t bow but said, “I am Leona. While I am not of a class to be marked as a royal queen, I am the leader of the lesser reptiles.”

Something about how the woman talked made Katherine cringe inside but she didn’t let on. Smiling, she said, “It’s very nice to meet you, Leona.”

Katherine was introduced to the other lesser royals of the small mammals, such as apes, hyenas, small cats, rats, weasels, foxes, and small dogs.

She was also introduced to the king of the large felines, a man she actually instantly liked. She learned from listening that he commanded the armies of lions, leopards, jaguars, tigers, panthers, and cheetahs.
Interesting
.

As she was led to the large table that looked to be made of an ancient tree shorn in half she frowned. She wondered why Talon had stuck at her side and knew as soon as he spoke. “I call this council meeting to order.” He sat at the head of the table, placing her to his left in an empty seat that was covered in amazingly beautiful flowers. She noted that the greater kings, the ones that were deadly predators, had thrones made of weapons, bones, and they were just scary as all-get-out, yet the lesser royals only had basic tree stumps with backs to be seated at.
Odder and odder.
Yep, she felt more and more like Alice down the rabbit hole by the minute.

“I, Talon, King of the Dragons, do call this meeting to order,” he said with a roar to shut up even the most silent of whispers. “I have chosen to champion the new queen of the Fae. Her bond-mates are blood brothers to me and therefore family. When her people awaken, her royal guard will be trained by the Dragons.”

Rising to his feet, Theodore said, “And she is bond-mate to my nephews. I request that they are also sent to the Bears for training. I’m not saying the Dragons aren’t good enough. However, she is our family as well.”

“As you wish,” Talon said with full respect for the man.

“She is now my daughter through her bond to my son. As she will one day bear the next heir to the Wolf lineage, I request that my royal guard are sent to protect her along with the ones that you will train.” He smiled and added, “With the training from the Dragons and Bears it will be a miracle should a dozen of them survive. I simply would like to ensure that they have additional numbers to shore up their ranks. Besides, with the training that they will receive from the two of you it will finally give my Wolves worthy adversaries,” he teased.

Kat couldn’t help but grin. She felt the affectionate teasing and smiled at that. She was going to say something when Leona, one of the “lesser” ones at the table, spoke up.

“I demand that my house be elevated at this council,” she stated. “Obviously there was an heir between my son and Mab, so I demand that my house is moved from the low status that we have been ranked.”

It felt like knives stabbing through her ears when the woman spoke. Every syllable that the woman spoke felt so wrong, like it was all a lie.

Talon shook his head. “Katherine is not of your house line. She is the granddaughter of Mab, this much is true. However, Katherine’s father is human.” He sighed and added, “Mab passed her power to the only female child in her line and that was Katherine. While Katherine’s father could have been saved by the power, it had to be passed to the female child only.” He looked to Katherine and murmured, “I’m so sorry. No matter how much she loved your father she couldn’t have saved him. It’s a matriarchal line only. The power would only transfer from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter in your case,” he explained.

Katherine had dreamed of that. She had realized that before Talon had verified the words and sighed. Bowing her head, she nodded but then forced her head back up again when a voice whispered in her mind.
Never bow your head, child. The Fae line has always had its closest ties to me. It’s a line that has been coveted and a line that Leona had tried to force her house into.

Katherine looked around for the voice, and when she saw it, oh hell’s bells, all hell broke loose.

It seemed as if the very walls parted for the beautiful woman that had just spoken in Katherine’s mind. As one the warriors pulled weapons, but with a singular raised hand from her they were stilled fully. “Explanations are needed.” Gaia spoke softly, and as one the men who had just tried to pull their weapons on her were seated.

“Mab came to me nearly eight hundred years ago.” She spoke and walked to the dais that suddenly rose with a throne that was truly fit for a Queen of Earth there. Taking her seat, she looked to the members of the Council and sighed. “So many lost over the years,” she murmured aloud as she took in the empty seats. “They are truly gone, however.” She answered the question before it was voiced.

“Now, where was I?” Leaning back, she crossed her legs before continuing, “For so long I have allowed you all to rule yourselves because, as my children, I trusted you. I still do. I believe in you. I try to ensure that you lead your own lives and make your own choices without my interference. However, there are times that I must interfere in order to save not only you, my children, but the Children of Man as well.”

Waving a hand, she brought a cleansing breeze through the council chambers. “Mab was very young when she thought that she was in love with Askar of the house of lesser reptiles,” she murmured. “I knew the truth, however. Mab was not in love. It was lust. He was, and still remains, a very handsome man.” She spoke only truth. “However, two hundred years into the marriage she realized that the man wanted her only for her ties to me.” She looked now directly at Katherine. “You have to understand, dear child. My children are all beloved by me. However, some hold more power than others simply because it is how I created them. The Dragons have always been my fiercest of warriors, followed very, very closely by my Wolves, Bears, and large felines. It is to these houses I gave kingships, the Alpha male of each line being their leader because in war sometimes it is might that is needed, as well as cunning.”

So far it made sense to Katherine. “However, each of the kings I blessed with their mates.” She smiled softly. “While they are the kings that hold their thrones with fierce leadership, each would tell you that it is truly their queen, their bond-mate, that is the power behind the throne.” She heard shuffling and looked to the lesser houses and frowned. “I have not finished. You might all know this story, yet my newest great-grandchild does not, so you will not speak until I have given you leave.” The lower-level mammalian leader, a weasel, nodded and clenched his mouth tightly.

“Now, as I was saying, I preordained a bond-mate for each of my children. Even my fiercest Dragon king that has ever lived will one day be brought to knee by a woman that will take him by complete surprise.”

Katherine didn’t have to look to know that her bond-mates and Quincy as well as Talon’s royal guard shot Talon a smirk.

“When one finds their true bond-mate, they would die for them, no hesitations or questions. That love is true and it is unwavering.” She smirked and added, looking to Quincy and one of the Dragon royal guards, “Even if sometimes it might feel as an illusion.” Sighing, she shook her head. “I digress again. For that I apologize, child.” She smiled indulgently.

“After my warriors, I had to bring life to the Earth. The Fae are that tie to Earth. There are many different divisions of the Fae, but while there are those that are truly elite warriors, fierce and protective, the bulk of them care for the Earth. Most ensure that our world will continue, thrive, and be healthy. As the new queen to the Fae line, darling child, you will have a strong connection to me because of all that I need you to do. Earth is falling apart. The Children of Man have allowed greed, envy, and selfishness to cloud their all.” She gazed across the council table and added, “I’m worried some of this council are beginning to feel the same.” She shook her head and to Katherine seemed to be ancient in that moment. The sadness practically came off her in waves.

“As I said, child, you will have a strong connection to me because I need for you to start to help to put the world back into order. It is coming close to time for the Children of Men to realize that the world that they so selfishly drill into, forests they burn, and so much more is alive. I am alive,” she stated. “They are killing me slowly,” she admitted and allowed the age that Katherine was feeling from her to start to show, if only a bit. “There was a time when the Children of Man and the Children of Gaia coexisted in harmony. We need to begin to usher that time in again.” She smiled and then said, “But that is for you and I to discuss later, child. We will talk more in your dreams, darling child.”

“Now then. As I had spoken of earlier, eight hundred years ago Mab came to me, fearful. She had learned that the man that she took as her husband, not consort or bond-mate but husband, had been having affairs. She was concerned because while the seeds of those affairs bore fruit, she didn’t. She worried that she was in some way defective.” She smiled and shook her head. “I assured her that she was not. I wanted and needed her to give him time. I wanted so very much for that relationship to work as Mab truly believed that she had found love with him and love should always conquer all but, alas, it didn’t.”

Everyone heard the intake of breath from Leona and Gaia said, “Voice it and I will place all of your line in stasis.” Since the woman didn’t speak, Gaia continued. “As I said, I wanted the relationship to work but it didn’t. Mab came to me two hundred years later, broken and bleeding. Her husband had tried to kill her, tried to take her out of the equation so that she couldn’t naysay his chosen child that he wanted to pass off as the future queen of the Fae.” She shook her head. “Never try to lie to the Earth, to Mother Nature, because the truth will always ring free and true,” she said simply.

“It was then that I knew that I had to help her. I knew the turmoil that it would cause but I had faith in the Children of Man. I was certain that they wouldn’t try to destroy all that I had created.” She snorted at her own shortsightedness. “Even goddesses can be wrong,” she told them all. “I hid her.” She heard the collective gasp from every member of the council but held up a hand. “It was the only way,” she murmured. “As you all believed that she had died, the last of the royal line gone as well. I allowed Mab to live among the humans. She guided them for a very long time, aging as she should and then moving on, becoming young once more and starting over at a new home, a new place.” She smiled. “And then she met your grandfather, Katherine. Finally, she found her true love. Sadly”—Gaia shrugged—“he was not her bond-mate,” she murmured. “She found love before her bond-mate could be born.” She shot a look to the trio of men surrounding Katherine. “One of you was to be her bond-mate. Since she took love and submitted her crown to her one and only female descendant, I chose to bond you with her as well.” She smiled and then said, “And you will never know which of the three of you it was because the love that you four share is far stronger than anything that I could have created.”

Looking back to Katherine, she said, “She loved you. You don’t recall her because she died when your grandfather did but she truly did love you. She wanted to be there for you when you came into your power and since she couldn’t,” she gestured to herself, “she asked me, your godmother, to be here instead,” she murmured. “I am sorry about your father. He was a very, very good man. Wilder Douglas rests and will one day take his place back in this realm, but for now he wants a rest. He loved your mother, your birthmother, which was as it should be because she would have been his bond-mate had his mother explained.” She shrugged. “However, life doesn’t always turn out as planned. Sometimes detours are made and we simply have to remap life. This is the remap,” she told one and all.

Rising, she walked to Katherine. “Come, child.” Gaia held her hand out. “Your guards can walk along with us. However, when we enter the stasis cavern it is only us.” She looked to Katherine’s mates and added, “As it should be.”

Rumbles and growls came from her mates, but Katherine shook her head. “She wouldn’t allow any harm to befall me.” She believed that, trusted it. She knew it for the truth that it was. Placing her hand into Gaia’s, she felt the shock of pure power and felt her eyes widen. “Oh my,” she whispered.

“‘Oh my’ is right,” Gaia stated playfully. “As I was saying, the Fae are the ones that I created in order to bring life to the world that I so loved, and those are the royal houses. Dragons, Bears, Wolves, large felines, my magical users such as the Magi and Warlocks, and you, my darling. The Fae. Of the royal houses, you are the only queen,” she said with a smile. “As it should be.”

Katherine felt the division in power, but it made sense to her in a strange way as well. “However, my other children couldn’t be ignored. The ogres and giants were the first of the lower houses. Due to infighting, they destroyed each other. Not in stasis but truly killed each other.” A look of pain passed her face. “The mammalians that are not the predators that the Wolves, Bears, and others are were next,” she explained. “The reptilian house was next, and there were more, but we will talk about all of that later,” she said with a smile. “Now then.”

Waving a hand, she looked to the men behind her. “This is where you remain. Quincy, you can queue up all of those lovely cameras that you have in here. I will allow them to transmit so that her bond-mates are assured that she is safe.”

Skittles gulped and nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He pulled out his bag of Skittles and offered some to her. “Candy?”

Gaia’s smile was wide. “Thank you, Quincy.” She accepted several of the colorful candies. “I’ve chosen well for you,” she said with a smile. “You won’t think so at first, but you will learn,” she said and winked at him before walking through the wall with Katherine in tow.