Dark Throne, The (31 page)

Heather just hoped the safety device was worth all the
bloody trouble
.

He nodded, grateful for her calm and murmured, “Look, you
press this here
.”

She looked down and almost fainted
. A golden box was somehow attached to her skin,
between her breasts. She jumped up and ran over to the bathroom,
where a floor to ceiling mirror was suspended. Heather studied the
box and saw a large, faceted stone in the center of it. She
imagined this was the button. She gulped, for it looked
suspiciously like a huge ruby. In fact, it had to be, but it was as
large as a quail’s egg. Surrounding it, were a multitude of
diamonds, in various cuts. The box was about the size of a ring box
and in a gleaming rose gold.

What freaked her out was the way it was welding between her
breasts
. There was a seamless
join, almost as though it had grown from her body.

Fade appeared behind her in the mirror and she could see
his wings were still ruffling with unease
.

“
I just press the ruby, right
? And that’s the alarm?”

He nodded
. “Yes. Is
that what you call the stone? A ruby?”

“
Yeah
. Don’t you have
them here?”

“
No
. I have never seen
one like this before. Our jewels are rarely one color. They’re
prized for their striations.”

“
That’s weird
. On
Earth, rubies are one of the most precious stones. Save the ones
around the central stone. They’re called diamonds.”

“
The
sleckil
always manifests as jewelry according
to the Elder, but the style varies upon the wearer.”

“
That’s nuts
.” She
shook her head, as her fingers trailed the box. She couldn’t take
her eyes from this new protrusion. “Especially as it yielded an
Earthen jewel.”

“
Perhaps, but it will keep you safe and that is all that
matters to me
. The sound is
pitched to alter the waves that make our minds work. Once this
happens, our body shuts down to protect the mind and allow it to
recuperate. The effects can last for days, so severe is the
sound.

“
The box reacts to your heart’s beat
. From it, it will detect the severity of the
situation. If you are truly panicked, the sound emitted can disarm
for days. If you are merely afraid or highly nervous, then it will
beep a sound that will cause confusion. You too will be confused,
but by the time your mind returns to its earlier state, it will
cause a slight amnesia and you will be safe.

“
Sleckils
aren’t a
well-known magick. But if anyone sees it, ever, I want you to lie
and say that it is a form of jewelry on Earth. Just like your
pierced ears. They will not question what it is, that way. And that
lie is aided by the strange stones. It should be adequate
cover.”

Her lips twitched at his reference to her
ears
. It had perplexed her
entire family and the doctor that as her ears had made the strange
transformation into those of an Elfen, the two holes at her lobes
had remained. Only the week before, her father had gifted her with
a pair of earrings as well as a set of cuffs as a coming of age
present. The earrings were a prototype, by the sounds of it. The
palace’s jeweler had never made anything like it before.

“
That should be a good cover story
.”

“
I have something else for you and these are also for your
safety even though the repercussions of t
heir use terrify me, your safety and protection is all
important to me.” It was only then that she realized he’d brought
the sack from earlier into the bathroom with him. Burying his hands
into it, he brought out some doorknobs that were like those her
aunt had left her, but were heavily weighted with the stones that
were obviously the jewels he’d mentioned earlier. Each one had a
large cabochon stone with shades that made a rainbow look bland.
There were three in all. “We must find a way to hide these within
your clothes. They are different to the ones that brought you here
and even rarer, it took a long while for your father to have these
sourced. You must utter the word
abrel
and it will
attach itself to a door, there is no need for the work we had to
undertake on Earth. Mother Mearth’s magick will take that tedious
task from you.”

“
But I could enter a different country
. Or it could take me back to Earth. I don’t want
that. Surely the
sleckil
will be
enough? Why do I need these, as well?”

“
We are living in troubled times, my love
. We must protect you and I can’t always be with
you. There are times, when you will be alone and you must have
these things to secure you. You must be prepared to use them. And
if they take you to Earth, you must not fear. For I will never let
you leave me. I will seek you until the end of my days. I will keep
one and you keep the other two, that way, if the knob does take you
away, then I will have the means to find you. And if that doesn’t
work, then I’ll commission the entire land to bring similar magick
with them. I will find you. But for your own safety, you must have
them close to you. Do you understand?”

“
I do
. But I don’t want
to.” She swallowed back tears, because there was an earnestness to
his voice that frightened her. He truly believed that she was in
danger and she could handle that. Hell, she’d lived in New York and
had been mugged before she’d learned self-defense. Fear was one
thing, but something that would take her away from him?

Now she’d found him, Heather wasn’t sure she could live
without him
. No matter his
words that he would not rest until he found her again. People went
missing everyday back on Earth and no one ever found them, despite
ceaseless efforts and attempts to find them again.

How would she survive without
him?

Chapter
Fourteen

For the first time, Heather felt as though a snake had
entered her new paradise
.

And she didn’t like it
.

It had been a surreal morning thus far
. And it looked set to get even
weirder.

She’d been awoken this morning with a gaggle of
noblewomen
. Accustomed to
being awoken with some part of Fade’s body penetrating hers, it
hadn’t exactly cheered her up to realize that he was down the hall
with a morning erection going to waste.

Heather fully admitted that she’d turned into a whore,
where he was concerned
. But
the fault lay with his cock and the delicious body it was attached
to. How could she ignore it? Deny herself such pleasure, when every
part of him was tailor made for her?

No, the morning had started off in the worst way
possible
. And then, she’d had
to endure breakfast with the beaming, smiling, blushing women who
had been sent to tend her.

According to Jenderian tradition, or so her father had told
her, she was to choose up to five women from this set to be her
ladies in waiting
. Or
attendants as the Mearthen referred to them. They would follow her,
wherever she went. Be it Haden or any other kingdom. Tend to her
every wish. Be her friends and companions.

The idea made her nauseous
.

Not a one of them, even though they were her peers, would
ever understand what made Heather tick
. How could they? They’d been reared gently. With the
proverbial silver spoon slipped between their lips at every step of
their adolescence.

She’d been reared in New York
. And New Yorkers were a hardy bunch. Even the rich guys
were tough, New York and its vibrant, bristling energy was the
reason for their wealth. The city formed each and every person,
giving out options at every stage. To be a criminal or not to be
one, that was one of the questions. To be educated and strive for a
career that would line a person’s pockets eventually leading to a
heart attack from the strain or to be an average Joe worker with
never enough money, was another. To be a victim or a fighter was
the principle stage behind Heather’s point.

These women weren’t fighters
. She didn’t know them enough to say they were victims, but
they certainly weren’t like her who had fought for her very
survival at different periods of her life.

How could they understand her
? How could she befriend them? And while very little of her
still felt like an Earthling, in this case, she wanted to ask how
she could make friends with these aliens?

She didn’t mean that in a xenophobic way
. But to her, they were aliens. Day to her night.
Sun to her moon.

Being set upon them as they breakfasted with her had soured
her day all the more
. They
didn’t seem to mind that she wasn’t chatting with them, hell, they
were doing enough of it themselves without any help from
her.

She’d enjoyed her Malkie and bread, something she’d taken
to craving at least a couple of times a day
. Topped it off with the Mearthen equivalent to
coffee,
hilkien
, and nibbled
at some fruit. A
plateni
which was near
as dammit a banana, but the outer flesh was a mixture of blue and
red with the inner a pale green and a
manzen
, a purple
apple-like fruit that was sour enough to have her eyes
crossing.

Then, they’d dressed her
.

Stripped her naked, ignoring her complaints and protests,
actually bathed her, massaged her and then helped her to
dress
. She’d never been so
goddamned embarrassed in all of her life.

And now alone, after having managed to dismiss them
regardless of the breach in protocol and tradition, Heather was
taking stock of herself and the situation
. She felt none of the excitement she was supposed to
feel, but at the same time, she had absolutely no bridal jitters.
Her blood was bound to Fade’s, the connection was more than just
one of the heart. It was intrinsic as her DNA.

No, she was discomforted more by the idea of getting
married in front of what, according to the gaggle, were a hundred
thousand people than she was at legally declaring herself as
Fade’s
. She hadn’t been
involved in the invitations, that had been left to her mother’s
social staff, but still, one hundred thousand people?

The gaggle had to be wrong
. Surely?

Hell, the last time she’d been around that many people,
she’d been at a music festival
. And even then, there had been that number of attendants
over the
entire
two day spectacle. Not at
once.

But it would seem that a crowd of
revelers would be attending her wedding.

Woo-hoo
.
Not.

On top of that, she had nerves about the ceremony
itself
. A few days ago, they’d
had the wedding rehearsal. It was surprisingly similar to that of
Earth, but the vows had different words. Same meanings though just
in a different order to Earthling tradition. ‘To cherish and to
hold’ instead of ‘to have and to hold,’ for example. She was afraid
the little discrepancies would catch her out and she’d
inadvertently revert to the way she’d seen on TV back in the
US.

Part of it was spoken in
Firfesh
, the only
language she spoke, that of the royals. But the rest was spoken
in
Mearlish
and those parts, she’d had to learn
by heart. Speaking in both languages, she was addressing her union
to her peers and to the commoners of Mearth.

She was certain she’d fluff up her lines
, she’d never been one for standing in the center
of a stage. Am dram had completely left her behind, when her class
had ceased its yearly productions of the nativity. And she couldn’t
afford to make any mistakes.

Heather wasn’t sure what it all meant, but something
happened during the ceremony
.
By uttering the words, they were zoning into a direct channel with
Mother Mearth. The very idea of that was enough to freak the hell
out of her, never mind all of her others anxieties to add to
that.

The only place she had no concern, was her
appearance
. Heather studied
her reflection in the 360 degree mirror surrounding her. Her butt
didn’t look big, it appeared taut and trim in the tight skirt of
wedding dress. Her boobs were pushed up and looked like soft
pillows beneath the corset she wore. The gown was in a strange
color, but then, every color on Mearth was strange to Heather’s
eyes. They seemed to have gone out of their way to create them.
This was a platinum color, it had strange swirls of white and grey
and silver within its depths. Yet somehow, despite the melding of
shades, it didn’t look tie-dyed. Those tones were hidden amongst
the weave.

“
People would pay a small fortune for fabric like this back
on Earth
,” she muttered
beneath her breath as she twisted and turned, assuring herself that
she wasn’t about to make a fool out of herself as she walked down
the aisle.