Moon's Flower: Book 6 (Kingdom Series) (13 page)

He wanted to tell her that her anger and jealousy hadn’t forced him to fall in love with Calanthe. The fairy was his soul mate and he feared, as ungentlemanly as it might sound, that had he been with Siria already but seen Calanthe from afar he would have still gone to her. In this world there was only one great love and Calanthe was his, but he would not hurt Siria by telling her that either.

“Then are you giving us your blessing?”

She shrugged. “Do I have a choice?”

Jericho wished things were different, wished Siria hadn’t fixed her heart on his. But he also could not change what was. And he didn’t want to hurt her, but he feared in this, he always would because he would always choose his fairy.

“You always have a choice.”

Pulling their still clasped hands to her lips, she rubbed her cheek against his hand. “Then I choose your happiness.”

“Siria, I…” the words stuck in his throat, his tongue felt impossibly full and thick and he didn’t know what to say to her that wouldn’t wound her. So he shook his head and swallowed the thought and simply stood.

“May I have a kiss?” she asked with a voice so soft it was barely a whisper.

He licked his lips. A kiss, and then he was free to be with Calanthe and they could figure out how to get the fairy council to redact their antiquated edict. Then again, the thought of kissing Siria felt somehow wrong.

Rosebud lips tipped downward. “I understand, Jericho. Go to her then.”

And it was that understanding that was his undoing. He’d loved her once, for a time Siria had been his entire world and it was the memory of that love that made him move into her body.

Her breathing quickened as she planted her hands on his chest. “Are you sure?”

Tipping her chin up, he let the joy of getting to spend his free moments by Calanthe’s side without fear of hiding shine on his face. “Very,” he whispered and then took her lips.

She melted into his touch, her body soft and pliant in his arms. Her lips were bold and seeking and feverish and he sensed the hunger, her need for more.

His body buzzed because in some ways it felt right. She was his first love and would always remain his first love, Calanthe owned his soul, but Siria had once owned his heart and he would never forget what she’d done for them.

Finally breaking the kiss, he panted as his forehead touched hers. “Thank you, Siria, for everything.”

Squeezing her eyes shut she nodded quickly. “Go before I change my mind.”

Jericho could not believe his good fortune, and with a jubilant cry, he picked Siria up and hugged her fiercely. “Thank you. Thank you.” Bowing, he ran for his balustrade and called his portal to him.

It was time to return to his fairy.

Siria watched him go, and if he’d turned back he might have noticed the glint in her eyes or the mysterious smile playing about her lips. But he never turned and he never noticed.

~*~

Calanthe knew what tonight was. She looked up at the sky, waved once, and then ran in search of her friend.

It was hard knowing that Jericho could come to her if he wanted, but that he definitely shouldn’t. She’d broken so many rules already, just to be with him. They played a very dangerous game, she was just happy that she hadn’t been caught.

What she needed was to take her mind off of him, off their time spent together and what they could be doing right now if he returned. Her body burned with the memories of his touch, the way his thick girth had filled her.

Sucking in a breath as red crept into her cheeks, she smirked. That memory had kept her warm many a night.

“June,” she cried when she entered the glen where the games were being held.

Tonight, everything seemed different. Yes, her heart ached for Jericho and probably always would, but she’d found her contentment, and she was that, she was at peace. Finally, she could breath and smile and know she was right where she should always have been.

“June!” she cried again as a pair of drunken fairies waltzed passed her hand in hand and giggling into their acorn cups.

“Serena,” Calanthe grabbed a red headed fairy dressed entirely in leaves of green. Hiccupping, Serena turned her shiny blue eyes in Calanthe’s direction.

“Aye?”

The apple cider was potent tonight and brought on a coughing fit as Calanthe inhaled the fumes emanating from the woodland fairy’s breath.

Clearing her throat, she grimaced. “Have you see, June?” she asked with a somewhat scratchy voice.

Serena turned to Aniada and frowned. “We did see her, did we not, sister?”

Aniada bobbed her cafe au lait head, balancing the sunny yellow tulip bloom back onto the center of her head as it’d nearly toppled to the ground. “We did,” she said in the melodious chiming voice of a flower fairy. “Earlier, she was with The Blue. Oh, Calanthe, look what I learned to do.” She pulled out the star tipped wand from inside her tulip petal gown and swished it about.

A massive wreath of baby’s breath encircled Calanthe’s slender neck.

Aniada had only just come into her powers recently and was rather proud of her limited skills.

Calanthe plastered on a smile and pretended to ooh and ahh over the simple spell when, in fact, her heart was currently tripping in her chest. Why was June with The Blue?

True, Galeta was their head mistress and if she called, a fairy must obey. Most likely this could be absolutely nothing, but something felt suddenly very wrong.

The pair of fairies meandered off before Calanthe had a chance to question them further. Standing just outside the circle of campfire light, she hid in the shadows and watched as the other fairies raced and played and drank themselves silly. What’d seemed like so much fun mere seconds ago now made her want to run away.

She was probably overreacting. In the month since Jericho’s return to his home June had been nothing but her normal, fun self.

Calanthe licked her lips. Because even while she continued to berate herself over her foolishness of impending doom, she couldn’t keep her palms from slicking or her gut from churning.

Twisting on her heels, she shot into the sky and raced back toward her haven. The spot where she’d always met Jericho in the past. It was where she could think and keep away from the prying eyes of other fairies with too much time on their hands.

So it was a shock when upon entering the sanctity of her knoll, there he was.

Jericho was sitting on their stump, with his chin on his fist and staring out into space.

Halting so suddenly it was as if she’d slammed into an invisible wall, Calanthe could only stare on in shock.

As if sensing her presence, he jerked his head to the side and then shot to his feet. “Calanthe!”

The smile across his face was radiant and unexpected and her already frantically beating heart was threatening to rip out of her chest.

“Jericho,” she breathed. “What… what?”

“No time.” He rushed to her, holding out his palm for her to land into. “Change me. I wish to move away from such open places. Something about this night feels wrong.”

Her sentiments exactly. “Jericho, you are right. I do not like the charge in the air, the feeling that is prickling at me. Something is not right. What are you doing here?”

Forcing herself to talk and think rationally was so far from what Calanthe wanted to do. But ever since hearing of June with The Blue and now Jericho so openly engaging her, she didn’t like the strange feeling twisting through her inside. Whispering that something was amiss, something so obvious she should sense it. Should automatically know it.

She looked up at the sky.

“There are no crows following me tonight. She knows, Calanthe.”

Her nostrils flared. “Who knows?”

“Siria. She knows and she’s said it’s alright.”

Taking a hesitant step back, Calanthe held up her hands. “You told her?”

“No, no, of course I didn’t. Well,” he grimaced, “I had every intention of doing so eventually. But not so soon, not right away. She said that two fairies visited her and told her of us.”

Her stomach threatened to revolt. “Oh gods,” she squeezed her eyes shut, pinching her brow, “was it June and Galeta?”

Was that why June was missing? Had her friend told? Before Jericho even nodded, hot tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

“Yes. I assume it was,” he said softly. “What does this mean for us?”

The tears slipped then, because all the pieces were beginning to come together. “It means I am ruined.”

Bringing his palm to her cheek, he rested her body against his firm flesh so as to hug her. “That is why I came, we can fight this. We should fight this. There is no shame in love, Calanthe. Surely when your council sees that they will understand.”

“No,” she pulled away from him, “they will not. Jericho… I—”

“You are absolutely right,” another voice piped up then.

With a startled cry, Calanthe twirled about. But it was neither Galeta nor June staring back at them.

It was Miriam the Delighted. The seer of the glen and the fairy who’d told Calanthe about the seed in the first place. Her strange swirling lavender eyes chilled her to the marrow.

“Miriam, what are you doing here?” Calanthe cried, looking all around for more fairies to come crawling out of the woodworks.

Miriam tucked her speckled moth’s wings behind her back as she landed upon the head of a polka dotted toadstool. “You must understand that what is about to take place has been foreseen.”

“What does that mean?” Jericho growled and Miriam cut him off with a swish of her wrist.

“Listen to me and listen well, I set the game board, I know all its players. This is not the end, have faith and take heart for there is powerful magic at work.”

Miriam was a lovely creature, as were all fairies, but there was also something very creepy about her too. Something that made Calanthe wish to draw into herself. The pale skinned, ebony haired fairy’s eyes were beginning to bleed through with pure white. The spider silk dress clinging to her body began to glow as a rushing wind suddenly shot through the leaves, rustling branches and shaking ancient trees.

“Kiss him now,” Miriam said in a voice that’d grown ten times deeper.

“What?”

“
Now
!” The seers word boomed as a bolt of lightening crashed to the earth between them.

“Calanthe?” Jericho's eye were wide, mirroring her own.

Calling her magic, Calanthe jumped out of his hands and shifted to her human form. She didn’t have time to tuck in her wings or adjust her dress. Because there was magic in the air and to ignore Miriam was not an option.

Grabbing Jericho by the neck, she pulled him in for a kiss.

The moment their lips touched the air grew charged, not only with magic, but with energy so powerful it rippled and buzzed along their skin.

His hands were greedy as he curved them around the base of her spine, caressing the edges of her sensitive wings. Sighing into the kiss, molding her body as tight to his as humanly possible, Jericho took that opportunity to wrap his tongue around hers.

Sparks danced around them, the sky shook, the land rumbled. The world was alive and fire danced through her veins. Jericho’s moonglow spilled into her and she felt something light and airy begin to rip away from her very soul.

She knew immediately what it was and could not believe that it was actually happening to her. To them.

He loved her. He truly loved her. In all her years she’d heard of true love’s kiss, of the irrevocable mating of souls when a destined pair collided.

Shoving her hands against his chest, she pushed him against the tree trunk because she knew without knowing that they were running out of time and she wanted to take as much of him into her soul as possible.

Calanthe wanted all of him. And Jericho was just as greedy. His hand that’d been caressing her wing tip was now moving up her thigh, shoving the rose petals aside and his fingers… his gloriously skilled fingers had found her hidden treasure.

Lights danced in her vision and then he was inserting one deep into her channel and rubbing his thumb along her swollen nub and she was going to die from the pleasure.

Forgotten was the fact that they knew they’d been caught, that what they now shared was soon to be over. That Miriam was behind them, and possibly even watching. It didn’t matter, in their frenzy to love, it didn’t matter at all. Although the way his body shielded hers, she knew it would only appear as if they were frantically kissing, not mating as well.

Her hands were frantic on his body and within moments she had her hand shoved down his pants, grasping hold of his thick shaft and she was mindless as she pumped him up and down.

Their hips moved in unison, finding that perfect rhythm between them.

“I love you, Calanthe, with all that is in me. Now and forevermore,” Jericho hissed.

“As I do you, my Moon. My darkest night.”

As one they fractured into the pleasure, he howling and her crying—when they’d finished they were panting and clinging to one another as if for dear life.

“As you can see,” a sharp and cutting voice fractured Calanthe’s foggy bliss, “she has broken faith with fairy law.”

Galeta’s words were sharp and gloating.

“Jericho,” Calanthe clung to him, knowing the second she turned she’d see what she’d most feared.

His hands framed her face and she still smelled her essence of roses and wildflowers on his fingers. “It is okay, Calanthe,” he kissed her forehead fiercely, “we’ll be okay.”

“Oh no,” another voice, much richer and deeper than Galeta’s mocked, “that is quite untrue.”

“Siria!” he growled, looking up and with her heart sinking into the region of her knees, Calanthe turned to look upon the radiant beauty of the sun. “What are you doing here, the night is my domain.” He hurled it like an accusation.

Her lips curved. “Except when a fairy gives her consent for me to visit on the night when the veil drops.”

Galeta’s smirk was smug.

This was Calanthe’s first time seeing the woman and she couldn’t help but feel inadequate compared to the woman’s radiance. Her skin literally sparkled with flecks of gold, her hair was a waterfall of light. Her body seeming sculpted by the hands of a master.