Embrace the Power: A Paranormal Romance (The Blood Rose Series Book 9) (34 page)

“Margetta would have acquired the elf-lord power and who knows what would have happened that night at Charborne. But every fae ability I have tells me that she would have used the resulting power to take over our world. Think how many realm-folk would have died then?”

His nostrils flared. She felt his temper in hard, bitter waves, rolling off his skin. “All I’m hearing is that you’ve confirmed my original take on your character. You’ve always lacked the courage to act, to do what’s right. You should have contacted the ruling mastyr and given him a chance, given all the mastyrs a chance.”

She shook her head. “You’re not seeing the bigger, much more horrible picture. Try to envision what it would have been like if Margetta had gained control of the elf-lord power? If I’d reached out to anyone, and I mean
anyone,
Margetta would have used my position to get inside Ferrenden Peace.”

Stone closed his eyes. She watched him swallow hard as he shook his head back-and-forth several times. “I need to understand everything here.” He opened his eyes once more, but his complexion remained pale, almost gray. “In the visions that Margetta sent you, did realm-folk die?”

Her throat closed up and tears sprang to her eyes. Of all the things she’d suffered through the years, including the painful solitude of her castle life, the visions had been the most difficult to endure, even worse than the physical pain of receiving the elf-lord power each time. Having knowledge of the death of hundreds of realm-folk over the years, possibly thousands, yet being unable to act on that information, had required a great deal of prayer, of fortitude and of self-forgiveness.

Vojalie and Davido knew of the visions and had counseled her as well. But she’d still had to live with the results.

In response to his question about whether or not realm-folk died with each vision, she could only nod solemnly.

His nostrils flared and he bent over at the waist to plant his fists on the bed. His arms were spread wide, so that he could dip low enough to look her in the eye. He wasn’t but a few inches from her face.

She felt his growing anger. “How do you know for sure that Margetta, even if she’d made it inside Ferrenden Peace, would have been able to access the elf-lord power? How, Rosamunde? Because I’m telling you right now that the deaths of all these people are on your head. Every vision you received and failed to report to the ruling mastyr who could have taken action, placed a dagger in your hand that might as well have slit each throat.”

He breathed heavily through his nose, raspy, fiery sounds that set her heart to pounding once more. “What’s more, you’ve confirmed my original belief that you’re a coward. For what realm-person could have done this who had the smallest shred of either a conscience or a heart? You disgust me. You always have.”

He drew back full of so much righteous fury that when his color returned, his golden skin had a reddish hue over every visible surface his body.

“You don’t believe me, then, because I want to be clear on that point. You don’t trust that my fae instincts were and are strong enough to warn me not to act on her visions.”

“That’s what I’m saying exactly.”

Rosamunde straightened her shoulders. “Then I think it a very good thing that we didn’t bond last night.”

“If we’d bonded, and you’d revealed all of this afterward, I swear I would have killed you, or myself if need be, in order to be free of such a despicable connection. Now get out of my sight before I do something I’m sure at some point I’ll regret.”

Rosamunde stared at him for a long moment. “If you need me, Stone, I’m here for you. I know you don’t believe me, but you’re wrong about this.”

“Get out!” He shouted so loud that her ears rang.

Chapter Thirteen

Stone stared at the empty bed for a long, long moment.

His entire body vibrated with rage.

Sweet Goddess, he couldn’t believe how many different ways he’d made love to Rosamunde last night and right now he regretted it all. He felt as though he’d slept with a demoness, a woman who had tricked him with one set of seductive behaviors, yet all the while she’d been the real reason his adopted troll parents had died.

He should have stuck with his initial instincts about Rosamunde as a woman lacking courage and action. Her life might have been uncomfortably secluded, but it had been a soft existence. She hadn’t learned how to really do battle in a world constantly harassed by wraith-pairs.

And her story about Margetta forcing these visions on her yet making it impossible for her to act rang false to his warrior ears. If she’d really cared about all the realm-folk who’d died, she would have alerted the ruling mastyrs. She would have done something. A failure to act was as damning as anything else in this situation.

He dressed for the night in battle gear, as usual. Though like Ian, he’d left off wearing the woven shirts. He liked seeing his tattoos in the mirror as he wrestled his black mane into the woven clasp. Each time a major catastrophe had happened, he’d added a tattoo so that every single ink blade point on his body reminded him why he fought as he did.

He pulled the leather Guardsman coat aside and touched the point nearest his heart. He’d gotten it a year after the death of his parents, a reminder of why he would always serve as a Guardsman. He would battle for the safety of the Nine Realms until the day he died.

Grief swelled over him suddenly and so profound that he had to catch himself with both hands on the edge of the sink or he would have fallen forward and crashed into the mirror.

Sweat beaded up on his forehead.

He could recall the night he learned of the attack on Charborne as though it was yesterday and not three hundred years ago. He’d been as far from the village and the family farm as he could have been in Tannisford. He’d flown faster than ever before, but it had still taken him twenty minutes to get there.

By the time he arrived at Charborne, several Vampire Guard squads were in play taking care of business. Dozens of wraith-pairs lay dead on the cobbled streets of the village and the rest were being run to earth.

He’d sped the remaining distance to the family farm, but the house was on fire as were the haystacks scattered through the pasture. He found his parents already dead and lying in a ditch near their vegetable garden along with two female dairy workers and three field hands. The wraith-pairs had been in such a frenzy, they’d slaughtered forty head of cattle as well.

He’d carried his mother to a quiet, untouched place in their peach orchard, then gone back for his father and the others. He’d spent the rest of the night preparing funeral pyres. Relatives of the dead had come from miles around to mourn the loss.

His best friends, Harris and Cole, had stayed with him until dawn. He’d wept unceasingly. He’d always known that he’d been a shield of protection for Charborne. Wraith-pairs had attacked the village at least once-a-year and because of his ability, he’d fought them off from the time he’d learned to ply his battle frequency.

Though he’d had the current ruling mastyr of Tannisford drill the village in security maneuvers and some of the Guard had even trained the more stalwart trolls, elves and fae how to fight, no one could have predicted such a large number of wraith-pairs descending all at once on Charborne.

Except … Rosamunde.

Unbidden tears fell from his eyes, only what he felt wasn’t just the grief of having lost his family three centuries ago or even that their deaths could have been prevented. But in this moment, he’d also lost a woman he’d come to love.

Earlier, while making coffee and preparing ingredients for a frittata, he’d come to a decision to bond with her. He’d even taken a few minutes to mentally lay in all the arguments he would use to persuade her.

He’d shaved and showered, wishing she’d wake up so they could discuss the immediate future.

Now, he felt as though her revelations about Margetta’s visions had set his whole life on fire, burning it down to embers, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He could only return to the Communication Center and get back to work.

~ ~ ~

As Rosamunde showered in her castle bathroom, she felt numb from head to foot. She’d been a fool not to address the issue of Margetta’s visions much earlier in her relationship with Stone. In fact, the best time would have been when she’d served cocktails before the gala and both Vojalie and Davido had been present. They could have supported her claims.

But when she thought back to the scope of Davido’s revelations, she recalled the state of shock Stone had been in. He’d learned Davido wasn’t just his biological father, but an elf-lord as well. She couldn’t have layered yet another explosive piece of news on top of his parentage. It had seemed way too much at the time.

Yet without Davido’s support of her position, all Stone saw was her supposed weakness.

She realized she was emotionally worn out from the last three nights. Leaning her forearm against the tile and as the warm water beat down on her, she gave herself to the tears that had tightened her throat.

When she’d wept long enough and felt more at peace, she shut off the shower and took her time drying herself. She spent the next twenty minutes using her blow dryer in an almost haphazard manner. She didn’t even care that her disinterest resulted in a huge, frizzy mass.

When she went to her closet, however, and saw the long row of beautifully wrought gowns, each one specially designed and hand-stitched for the Queen, she grew very still. They were all elegant, a few in silk or velvet, but most in the woven fabrics common to the Nine Realms, though heavily hand-embroidered.

Much to her surprise, she realized she couldn’t put any of them on, not anymore. They no longer suited her and she closed the closet door.

Once she’d become Aralynn, she’d started down this path, good or bad, right or wrong. She’d loved the freedom of embracing her wolf side, whether running through the forest in fur and four paws or battling beside Stone with her hair held back by a woven clasp, but essentially set free from the Queen’s intricate braids.

She turned to face into the room, to the large, heavily carved, four-poster bed, to the ornate dresser and overly tall, upholstered chairs. The drapes by the window were velvet. The carpet on the floor was an expensive antique Turkish rug imported from the U.S. The hardwood floors had been recently refinished so that they gleamed.

Paintings by the most famous elven artists of the past several centuries adorned each wall. The frames alone cost a fortune. The room was …
opulent
.

She wasn’t. She never had been.

She fingered her frizzed-out hair.

As a child, she was happiest when she was outside playing with her goats.

The decision that came to her was so simple, she hardly knew what to make of it. She decided in that moment she would abdicate as queen and leave the castle for good. Her extensive staff governed Ferrenden Peace as it was. She’d truly been a figurehead and little better than a prisoner all these years.

Aralynn’s life, on the other hand, was one of action and doing. Rosamunde’s nature leaned to these qualities. She’d loved the weeks she’d served as Stone’s battle partner well before they’d become lovers.

Bottom line, she couldn’t go back. She couldn’t live in the castle any longer.

A new path opened up suddenly, one that Stone would fight her on, but she didn’t care. And, she had nothing to lose.

She teleported to the cottage then transformed into Aralynn. By now, it was no doubt well known that she was both the queen and Aralynn. She didn’t even care about that, not really. It was time to move on, to be who she was meant to really be, no matter which woman she brought to the fore.

She dressed in battle gear, but focused on her faeness and channeling the elf-lord power. When the earth began to rumble, she didn’t wait but teleported just outside the Tannisford Communication Center.

She took a deep breath and pushed open the glass door of the building then moved to the end of the hall to the room where Stone had his main display of screens.

The moment she crossed the threshold, her hand on her sheathed dagger for support, Stone’s deep voice boomed. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

All the screens began to crackle and every head turned first in Stone’s direction, then in hers.

The room fell deathly quiet.

Delia levitated to face Stone at eye-level. “Ease down, Mastyr! You’re going to explode the electronics!”

Stone, however, clearly couldn’t hear Delia. He levitated swiftly through the room, heading toward her. As he flew over the heads of his Com Center operators, several leaned or ducked to keep from getting clipped.

Rosamunde had enough sense to back into the hall.

Once he reached her, he shut the door to the center, then grabbed her arm, his mossy-green eyes lit up like a bonfire. “You are not welcome here and don’t ever come back.” He glanced down at his feet no doubt feeling the earth rumbling as well. “Shit. You’re kidding me. The elf-lord power? What’s going on?”

She offered him a wry smile. “It’s time to rock-and-roll, Stone. You with me? Because I’m not giving up serving Tannisford as Aralynn. I’m sorry for the way things fell out—”

“Fell out? You call that kind of deception and indifference to the plight of your fellow realm-folk a simple ‘falling out’. Fuck you, Rosamunde.”

She flared her own nostrils. “And fuck you right back because I know in my powerful fae heart that you’re wrong about how you’ve interpreted the Margetta visions.” This time she glanced down at her feet then grabbed Stone’s arm to channel the power into him. Whether he liked it nor, he was going to participate. She was tired of his temper and his rage. He needed to get with the program no matter what he thought about her.

Stone started to protest, but the vision rolled so fast that she watched him clamp his lips shut. His eyes widened as he stared back at her, so she knew he was receiving the vision at the same time.

Stone summed it up. “A bunch of wraith-pairs have got several troll teens trapped out at the grotto.” He blinked a few times as the vision faded then met her gaze.