Escaping Destiny (5 page)

He moved closer, as if he was afraid I’d run
away from him. I felt my skin tingle with the raw current I’d
always felt when sitting or standing too close to him. He pulled
the sheet from my body and smiled at the red satin bathrobe he’d
glamoured for me.

“Red suits you, Blood Princess,” he murmured
as his fingers trailed over the naked flesh of my leg.

“I’m waiting,” I replied, afraid to allow him
to waste time with the questions burning on my tongue.

“Always impatient, Pet.” He moved closer to
me and lay back against the pillows. His mammoth wings rustled, and
folded back neatly, as he settled in comfortably.

“Just over twenty two years ago, my father
was killed by my hand. I am sure your parents and your brother told
you how he was abusing the other Castes of Fae. What they may not
have known, is that he was abusing his own people first. Power can
corrupt even the strongest of beings. In the beginning my father
was much like your adopted one. In my eyes he could do no wrong. He
was everything to our people, and exactly the creature that Danu
wanted him to be.

Over time, something changed within him like
a sickness. He started making demands of our own people, and
eventually when he got bored of that, he took more. He took the
daughters of our enemies, as well as our allies. Gifts he called
them, and he spared those who gave them freely to him, and he took
what he wanted from those that would not and levied huge
consequences for those who defied him. He wanted something tangible
to assure they knew he had the power. Any slight, real or imagined
from one of the Lords or other Kings would result in the abuse of
their Gift.” He exhaled slowly, as if the memory was more than he
wanted to remember. His eyes took on a hued glow of amber and
obsidian.

“My uncle, Kier, saw it happening, and tried
to stop it. I think Alazander had been sick long before we caught
sight of it in him. Not only did he abuse the female Gifts, he had
been handing them off to others of the Horde to use at will. He did
more than just use those he took from their families. He shattered
many, and then they were handed off to his Elite Guard. We’re not
human, and I’m not proud of my father, or of what I did at his
bidding. I used those females, willingly or not, I took them. I did
what he wanted, what he expected of his sons. I’ve done things
that, looking back, make me sick, but I enjoyed it at the time. I
was raised to be of the Horde, and that meant I was raised to be
hard, fierce, merciless, and take what I wanted.”

Something in his eyes told me that he hadn’t
enjoyed what he’d done. He wasn’t as much of a victim as the poor
women had been, but he was still guilt ridden from what he’d
assisted his father in doing.

When I refused to comment on it, he
continued. “I was there when your grandfather was betrayed, and
killed,” he said softly. “I was there when he killed Anise and put
that idiot Dresden on the throne. I have always been at his right
hand and led his campaigns. I was the one who led the Elite Guard
you saw today.”

I stared at him, dumfounded. “How old are
you?” I whispered.

“I have lived over a thousand of your years,”
he replied steadily. I sucked in air as I was trying to wrap my
mind around this. “I have always told you that I am not proud of
many of the things I have done, and I have done some very bad
things, Synthia. Many of my regrets were for what I stood by and
allowed.”

“Kier was often at our court and he was a
sore spot for my Father. We had become affected by the plague that
was sweeping through the Horde, Blood, and Dark kingdoms. We had
been working with Kier to find who was responsible for what was
happening to Faery, and trying to find a way to stop it. Kier had
also been trying to get his sister released from Alazander and back
to the Dark Kingdom for years as my father’s madness had escalated.
Adding to this volatile situation was Danu. She was not pleased
with his excesses and abuse of the Fae people and had been
relentless in the visions of what would happen if we did not
intervene.”

“So, Kier and I, along with the Elite Guard,
had been formulating a coup behind Alazander’s back. Not exactly an
easy thing to do, considering the magnitude of his powers. It
boiled over one day, when my mother put voice to her concerns
during one of Kier’s visits. My Father abused her in front of an
entire assembly of the Horde. Most thought nothing of it, since
Alazander was known for taking his wives and concubines wherever he
deemed fit. Dristan could take no more, and tried to intervene.
Alazander turned his attention from my mother to my brother.”

I swallowed, slowly placing pieces together.
My eyes flickered up to his, and caught him lost in the memory of
his past.

“It was as if the centuries of insanity had
all escalated to this moment. He’d done so much damage to
everything, most of our allies had turned on us. He’d killed so
many innocents. He was killing us, and even though we were the
strongest of the Castes, sooner or later, fate would catch up with
us. I was the only one who could kill him. Up until then, I
couldn’t do it. I had faltered, right up until that day.” He
exhaled a shattered breath and shook his head. “He pierced Dristan
through the chest with one of his wing talons. Dristan had chosen
death rather than witness more of my father’s sickness; he knew
attacking the Horde King, even in defense of our mother, was
suicide. We all knew what my Father would do next. I killed him
then. I was unable to stop the beast inside of me from coming out
when I’d seen what he had done to my mother and Dristan. But, in
killing the reigning Horde King; I was fated to take his place on
the throne.”

I swallowed and tried to picture the men they
had been, and the ones they had become. “He was family, Ryder. You
chose to save your brother, but at a price to yourself. I would
have done the same thing had I been in your place.”

His mouth slashed into an angry line, and his
eyes turned from amber, to complete obsidian. “I don’t think you
would have. You, unlike me, would have looked for a way out of it
without killing your own father.”

“He took the choice from you when he struck
at them. You made the right choice.”

“For who? Dristan? My mother? For Danu? For
Faery? I did not
want
to take the throne!!”

“But you weren’t the Horde King before
tonight?” I asked carefully.

“No, there was too much that I had to
accomplish, that I could not do as the Horde King and all that the
title entails. Those in attendance that night were sworn to a blood
oath not to reveal what had happened. To perpetuate what needed to
be done to save Faery, Kier adopted me as one of his sons so that
we could misdirect our enemies and find the heirs, and relics of
the prophecy. It allowed me to hide in plain sight without being
challenged, or lied to by those who would want to challenge or
cause the Horde King issues.”

“That’s how you were able to say you were
Kier’s son,” I said with a wince. “You’re not Adam’s brother;
you’re his cousin.”

“I am. My mother is Kier’s only sister. He
saved us, all of us. If he hadn’t been willing to help, my father
or the Mages would have eventually killed us all. Ristan had
already been having visions of what was needed to fix the damage my
father and the Mages had wrought on this world. Part of the
prophecy included atonement for the damage done by my father, but
something like that has to be undertaken very carefully so the
other Castes don’t sense weakness and attack. Another part of the
prophecy is the recovery of the relics and the union of the Light
and Dark Heirs and their offspring.

“So, why me? I don’t understand why you asked
for me.”

“You are part of the last piece of the
prophecy that we did not discuss with you before. The one
concerning the union of the Horde, and Blood Heirs. You are an
Heir, or you will be. Danu picked you,” he whispered as his hand
found mine and swallowed it in his much larger hand. “We birth an
Heir of both Horde and Blood, one who will help heal the
lands.”

“Yeah, sure. Just like I was supposed to with
Adam? Anyone ever consider the idea that maybe Danu ate a batch of
funky brownies and decided to send Ristan some very random, very
kinky dreams? Or, maybe Ristan ate the brownies? It’s plausible
with that Demon.”

“I don’t think Danu eats funky brownies, as
you call them.”

“Wishful thinking. I’d really like to meet
this Danu, and give her a solid piece of my mind. I also want to
know why all her visions about me include making babies.”

He shook his head and smiled sadly at me. “I
don’t know why she had to make things as complicated as she has. I
know she cannot directly help us so she sent the prophecy to try in
her own way to help. I do know that her anger with my father knew
no bounds and we have been trying to heal the rift with her since
his death.”

“So why did you cut up my brother?” There it
was, the final piece I could not reconcile him doing.

“I wish I did not have to go that route, but
it is a tactic my father would have used to get his way. I couldn’t
just go to your parents and tell them that I’d killed the reigning
Horde King as I asked for you, not without them trying to attack us
outright to test my strength, so I sent the emissaries in my
father’s name. When that did not work, I used Liam. Up until that
point, I had nothing to do with him and I had been trying to figure
out how to let him go, as I had with many of the other prisoners
that my father had collected. The tactic worked and your parents
accepted my offer and Liam was released,” he said as he took
another breath and continued on.

“Everything was going according to plan. We
were on the trail of who was harming Faery, we had two of four
Heirs identified, and then your parents did the unexpected and
reneged on the deal by stealing you away and hiding you. Ristan’s
vision’s never changed, so we knew through him that the Blood Heir
was still out there, alive. I knew that if I had been your father,
I’d have sent you to where no other Fae would. To the humans. The
Guild was unexpected, though, and smart.”

“I had to pressure them to keep the contract.
By sending small groups of the Horde to the borders, and attacking,
I managed it with little to no bloodshed. I could have asked for
Liam back, I was within my rights, but I figured enough damage had
been done to him already.”

“Wait a minute. You planned on adding me to
your harem?”

“If you mean the Women’s Pavilion, then yes,”
he replied smoothly.

“You still have a harem…?”

“Yes, and I won’t be getting rid of it
either, Synthia.”

I felt my stomach hit the floor like a ton of
bricks.

“Now you know how and why I let everyone
assume I was the Dark Heir. It allowed me to move around with the
backing of the Dark King and find the relics, as well as you and
the other Heirs that had disappeared by that time, without
revealing who and what I am,” he smiled as his eyes sparkled with
mischief, as if he hadn’t just said he was keeping a harem of
women. “Strange how destiny works; you left Faery to escape me, and
you landed in my lap, anyway.”

“You planned on keeping me, knowing you had
to find the Blood Heir and get her pregnant?” I said slowly. At
this, he looked mildly confused. “You asshole!”

“Doesn’t matter, Synthia. I found you, and
it’s you I had to create an Heir through.”

“And you don’t see a problem with this?” I
asked, sitting up to move away from him. I needed distance.

“No, I don’t. It’s worked out perfectly and
so much makes sense now.”

“My ass, Fairy! I’m not having your baby just
because you want me to, or because some stupid, funky brownie
eating deity saw something. Obviously she has no freaking idea of
what the hell she sees either, because less than forty-eight hours
ago, I was supposed to be having Adam’s baby to save your world!
You have a harem of women, go fuck them and leave me out of it!” I
was fighting tears. He had a harem of women somewhere in this
place, he was the flipping Horde King, and he’d said nothing about
loving me, only the damn need to save his fucking Fairy lands!

“You’re having my child,” he growled, as he
moved off of the bed and glamoured on silky blank pants. His wings
seemed to expand with his slightest movement.

“No. I’m. Not!”

“Yes you are, you’re already pregnant,
Synthia.”

“No I’m not!”

“The reason you became sick when you were
living in your guardians home is because you were pregnant with my
child. A Horde Heir, the wards sensed it. They were trying to
protect you from the child we made.”

“You’re lying,” I screamed.

This wasn’t happening!

“It’s happening, whether either of us wants a
child now or not. I would have preferred children later, but this
seems to be how Danu wanted it all to work. I am sorry, but you
will have to adjust to this quickly.”

“Me!? Me!? Take me home, Ryder. Is that even
your name?” I didn’t know what to think anymore, or what to
believe. He’d played with words so much that I wasn’t sure I could
trust him anymore.

He laughed regretfully and shook his head as
he lifted it to face me. His wings expanded, and the room sizzled
with his immense power. He strode forward with purpose, but I held
my ground.

“I have a few things to attend to and will be
back shortly. I suggest you get prepared for an exam from Eliran
while I am gone.”

I watched as he sifted out, and left me
sitting in the huge elegant bedroom of the Horde King, alone. I
brought my shaking hands to my stomach and felt the flat line of my
abdomen. A baby? I wasn’t ready for a baby, and I wasn’t ready to
be set aside in a flipping harem and forgotten about as all the
other females had been. I had to get the fuck out of this place,
soon.