Dark Throne, The (23 page)

The youngest looked furious at such a
prospect
. The other two seemed
more amenable.

Nodding, he turned his back on them and set to
work
.

There was a lot to do, before this
plan of his was tailored to perfection.

Heather couldn’t believe how at home she
felt
. While it had been
decades since she’d been in the Jenderian palace, by simply being
there, memories were triggered. Sadly not of her parents, but of
her aunt.

In the gardens mostly
.

Aunt May had always loved to have her fingers in the
soil
. Even in their tiny
Manhattan apartment, there had been plants everywhere. On the
windowsills, on shelves and on the floor. Walking into their rooms
had been like walking into an interior jungle. And in the gardens
of the palace, with their neatly manicured blue lawns and peculiar
flowers that emitted even stranger scents, she felt strangely at
home. Connected to her aunt in some way that denied
explanation.

In the past week since her arrival on Mearth, she had grown
to know her mother and father a great deal more than she’d ever
expected
. It was strange to be
with people who loved her so much and for whom she had yet to feel
such a tie. More than anything, she felt guilty.

Every time she saw her mother, Heather saw the love for her
in the other woman’s eyes but she couldn’t
reciprocate
. It was too early
for that. But for her parents, who had known of her existence, who
had known she still lived and whose love had continued unabated,
Heather could only imagine how intolerable the situation was for
them.

Already there had been clashes between Heather’s very
nature and those required by a Jenderian
Princess
.

Fade was far more tolerate of her and her outbreaks of
‘Earthisms’ as he deemed them
.
He found them to be amusing. Laughing at her and chortling at her
curses and her ways and for that, she’d forever be grateful. In the
week since they’d arrived, Fade and she had grown insurmountably
closer. Even she was surprised at the depth of need that flowed
between them. On an almost constant level, she had to be with
him.

He’d taken to training with the warriors in the fields
outside the palace and she
had
to watch him. It
wasn’t that she got her kicks from watching him, if anything it was
the reverse. She hated seeing him in his battle gear, with his
sword raised and warrior cries bursting free from his throat. It
frightened her.

In fact, it more than frightened her
. It terrified her. The thought that one day he would
leave her for battle, fully intending to return victorious, only to
be felled on the field, was enough to have her freezing
inside.

Heather knew that if that were to happen, she herself would
die
. And it felt so ridiculous
to think that. Even though she’d been born on Mearthen soil, she
was a kid of Earth, of the nineties. Women didn’t die of broken
hearts, but she would if anything were to happen to Fade and she
had a feeling he shared that sentiment.

Of course, the mate bond was
responsible for that.

In many ways she was thankful for it, but the prospect of
such need, of such dependency was alien to her and scared
her
. But there was little
point in thinking about it because there was nothing she could
do.

A
part of her hoped that her father would agree to stay on the throne
a little bit longer
. While her
mother loved her and literally radiated that love, Heather knew
because she couldn’t reciprocate, it caused Setta untold pain. As
such, there were times when they clashed and the mealtimes were
often one of those periods. Because of it, she’d lost her appetite
and had lost at least twelve pounds due to not eating,
at all
.

They never ate in t
heir private rooms, but always in the public dining hall.
The hall was enormous and every night, like in a medieval castle,
they feasted. But their ways were so completely different to her
own and they were like no medieval romance she’d ever read. There
were unusual forks and knives and skewers. Different eating
patterns. Different rituals that if one didn’t follow, then one was
acting against Mother Mearth.

To Fade, naturally, they were as simple as walking and to
everybody else in the hall… but not to Heather
. She’d once attempted to cut a piece of meat
from a jalken bird, something which Fade assured her was a
comestible. After she’d first sampled the meat, he’d shown her one
of them in the palace farm the next day. It had looked like a
turkey but instead of black and white plumage, it was bright
turquoise and red. Almost like a peacock but without the tail.
She’d tried to cut it with her knife and had watched in horror as
her mother had almost leapt out of her seat to tackle the cutlery
from her. All of the eyes in the hall had switched to her and it
was hardly a small atrium. Over three hundred people broke their
bread in that room and more had been there on that occasion. And at
that moment, she’d been at the center of their
attention.

“
You must never touch the jalken bird with
metal
. It is sacred to us.
Mother Mearth blessed us with this bird,” Setta had hissed. “You
must pluck the meat with your fingers.”

When Heather had turned to Fade for affirmation, he’d
merely squeezed her knee in sympathy and wrapped an arm about her
shoulder
. She’d seen the
glance between her parents and had seen the displeasure in her
father’s eyes at her mother’s, not her own, behavior. Her dad’s
dictate that they let her be herself and that they let her become
accustomed to this world seemed to be followed by everybody but
Setta.

The more she was in Setta’s presence, the more the other
woman tried to change her
. And
in a way, Heather knew it was because her mother wanted to control
something,
anything
, because she
couldn’t control the way her daughter felt for her. And
inadvertently, as she tried to seek her daughter’s love, she was
pushing her further and further away.

Then, there had been the time, when Heather had first been
presented to court
.

The throne room was a lot smaller than the feasting room,
but huge nonetheless
. Two
thrones were at the head of the chamber and nobles had drifted
along the length, deep in discussions of politics and at the same
time, gossiping about only who knew what.

The morning had been about presenting herself to the court,
declaring her return to Jender and also, announcing her title to
the Jenderian nobility
. She’d
had to stride down the length of the room and only having Fade by
her side had made the entire procedure at all bearable.

They had walked down the aisle together, aiming for her
parents
. When they’d come to a
halt a few feet from the raised dais that contained her mother and
father’s thrones, Fade had detached himself from her and bowed.
Then, with a courtly twist of his heels, he’d turned to her side
with an arm outstretched for her to use as a support. She’d
curtsied and her eyes had caught her mate’s, looking for
reassurance. Seeing the pride there had made her feel flushed with
success and any discomfort had disappeared, leaving her confident
in what was an unnatural position for her.

Fade’s approval mattered more to her
than that of her parents and Heather had a feeling that was why her
mother had behaved the way she had…

“
You shouldn’t curtsy that way, Heather
,” had come the low hiss, as she had made her way
back up into standing position. “Why did you not do it as I showed
you? If you would only listen, you wouldn’t have just blundered the
way you did.”

Heather had stumbled at the reprimand
. But far worse than that -because Fade had soon
steadied her- her mother’s words had been overheard by one of the
ladies close to the thrones and titters had soon burst through the
room at Setta’s chiding.

Where she had once been flushed with
pride, humiliation had soon taken its place.

Even now, three days later, she could still turn bright
pink at the memory
.

Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, Heather
changed from a morning dress to a
noon
dress and groused
at the necessity. She was sure that she’d never changed clothes as
much in her life. Nearly ten times a day, she had to flitter from
one outfit to another and they were always new. She had yet to
repeat an outfit.

When Fade had said the palace seamstresses had made her a
dress overnight, she’d thought it a tad exuberant to have a team of
tailors on staff but considering how many times she had to change,
she could well understand it
.
It would surely be cheaper to have them living in than it would to
constantly send out to fashion houses.

Peering at herself in the looking glass, she grimaced at
the image before her
. Her hip
bones and ribs were starting to protrude. She’d always been curvy
below. On her ass and thighs. But on the top half, she was always
on the brink of being too skinny. It was a bitch that the weight
she’d lost, hadn’t disappeared from her ass but from the bits that
needed all the fat they could get.

She shrieked as the door suddenly opened and thinking it a
maid, she grabbed her morning dress to her to try and cover herself
up
. “For fuck’s sake,” she
shrieked, and then flushed when Fade’s head popped round the door.
His grinning face hovered there and she chided, “Don’t do that. You
scared me to death.” Rolling her eyes as he shut the door and
walked towards her, she tightened her hold on the dress in her
hands.

A
few days ago, she’d have dropped it in the hopes that he’d take her
to bed
. But if he saw how much
weight she’d lost, he wouldn’t be pleased.

As it was, she kept the dress tucked
against her body and his grin slowly faded into a frown.

“
Why are you hiding from me?” he growled, something in his
eyes twisted and Heather realized he was taking it as a personal
affront
. Her fingers tightened
about the material, her knuckles turning white as she attempted to
battle her inner demons. But she had little choice for he soon
strode over and pulled the garment away from her. She hissed as
cold air brushed over her skin, puckering her nipples.

She winced as his frown turned even blacker and into a
scowl
.

“
Haven’t you been eating?” he reprimanded, his eyes flashing
up and down over her form
.

“
Yes
,” she lied,
crossing her fingers behind her back as her eyes flashed to meet
his and then darted way.

“
Don’t lie to me
,” he
growled.

“
I’m not lying
,” she
spat and turned around to gather another dress to her.

He grabbed her by the hips and pulled her against his
length
. His cock ever hard in
her presence, didn’t do wrong by her. Even during an argument and
even as she looked as skinny as one of the jalken birds, when it
had been defrocked of its plumage and had been skinned and had all
of its meat plucked from its bones… even then, his cock was still
hard for her.

Despite herself, she was relieved and rolled her hips
against him
.

“
Now, I think about it
.
I haven’t seen you eat at the table for a while. You pick. It’s
your mother, isn’t it?” he grouched and shook his head. “Your
father feared this would happen.”

“
Have you been talking to
him behind my back?”

“
Of course
.” She glared
at him, but he merely shook his head and cupped her cheek. “I’m
your mate, dearling. Of course he talked to me. He plead with me
that I protect you. When you were naught but a babe, our mothers
bound us together. That did not mean to say that they were fully
aware of what kind of man I would become. He had to speak to me to
make sure that I am what you deserved, what you need and what he
wanted for you.”

“
Well, I don’t like that you’ve been talking about me behind
my back
.”

“
You’ll have to get used to it
. There will be more talk if you don’t start eating.
“

“
I can’t help that I don’t know the stupid ways of this
stupid place
. And mother
doesn’t seem to want to teach me. She’s content to growl and grouch
at my lack of manners. It’s really weird. She’s making it so that
when we’re ready for dinner, any hunger I feel just disappears and
I just can’t eat. I feel sick instead. With nerves. Wondering what
the hell else I’m about to do that will cause her to leap over the
tables to tackle me. It’s humiliating.”

“
Why didn’t you tell me
? I realized that this situation has caused you stress, but
I didn’t realize the damage she was doing. We can eat here, in our
suite.”