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

Heat crawled up her throat and settled in her cheeks.

He was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. More glorious than the flowers that bloomed beneath her touch, even the moon’s flower that’d nearly brought tears to her eyes.

And was it her imagination, but the wind seemed to hold a hint of that frosty perfume she’d smelled when she’d touched the glass-like petals.

“Are you hurt?” he asked in cool, crisp voice. A voice that literally seemed to slip inside her soul and resonate through her blood like the hum of crystal dancing in the wind.

“Huh?” was the only thing she could think to mutter.

His small grin, rattled loose the marbles in her head and with a slight shake, she got unsteadily to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I thought you’d seen me. I am about ten times your size. I would have yelled if I’d known you weren’t looking.”

Legs feeling incredibly unsteady… good gods were her knees knocking? She attempted to ignore the very strange reaction she was experiencing to being in his presence and tried, without much success, to not appear as daft as she was currently feeling.

“No, I’m sorry. I was just…” she frowned, because that overwhelming need she’d felt to flee earlier was now completely vanished, how very strange, “I was thinking,” she said weakly.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen a man before.

She had.

In picture books, and often times in tales told around the campfire as magical mirages lit up the night sky, but she’d never been within the actual presence of a live one.

Never realized just how virile and masculine a male truly was. Fairies were all women. She’d never questioned why, until now. Looking into his eyes, feeling her heart thump a chaotic, frenzied beat, she wondered if perhaps it was because the mere presence of them was so… so… overwhelming. She swallowed hard with a tongue that felt two times too thick for her mouth.

Even white teeth flashed when he smiled down at her. “What were you thinking of, little fairy?”

He seemed in no rush to release her, and she knew she should get off his hand and stand on her own power, but something inside her was oddly hesitant to leave his side too.

Grabbing her thick braid with two hands, she smoothed her flyaway curls down as best she could. Standing on his palm was nice, but it was making her act ridiculous. Needing room to breathe so she could think, she hovered away from him and thought for a moment she witnessed a flash of disappointment light through the rich brown of his eyes.

Done patting her hair, she began flitting her fingers along her dress line, making certain the petals stayed where they should, fluffing them out so that they cascaded around her slim legs becomingly.

She knew she was primping, but she wasn’t quite sure how to stop it.

“Well, human, I was thinking…” should she tell him her true thoughts? She didn’t know him. What if he laughed? What if he treated her as June had earlier? She frowned.

The tip of his pinky grazed her chin, the touch jolted like fire and made her hiss with a sharp indrawn breath.

“I will not laugh,” he said, but it was the way he said it, so kind, so sweet, that made her finally brave enough to open up.

“I was thinking I should leave the fairy glen. Tonight. Right now.” She shrugged, feeling rather foolish now that the words were out and waited with a much too hard pounding heart for his reply.

Glancing over his shoulder, the man appeared to be searching for something. It gave Calanthe time to study him more fully. It was hard to gauge with her a tenth of his size whether he was a tall human, but he appeared to be so. Wearing dark pants and dark brown jacket, he wasn’t dressed in any sort of garb to distinguish him as being from a specific region of Kingdom.

Who was this man? It wasn’t as if there was an enchantment around the glen to prevent humans from entering, occasionally a few brave souls had been known to come inside for a visit… and over the years a few others, but those that had were always looking for their godmothers and they were quickly gone before anyone could see them for longer than a few seconds at most.

But not many came to seek out fairies, since it was well known throughout the regions that fairies (apart from godmothers of course) were all rather self-serving and rarely prone to helping others.

Why was he here? But more importantly, who was he?

Moving toward a large green knoll, he sat.

Why?

Was he actually interested in chatting with her?

Unsure whether he wished her company or not, she stayed where she was and waited, but for what, she wasn’t entirely sure.

“So you want to leave the glen?” he finally prompted, with a small nod. And the way he was sitting, with his torso slumped over his bent knees and looking straight at her, it was obvious he meant to spend some time.

Fighting a smile, she did something bold. If he meant to stay, then she didn’t want him to view her as simply a doll-like fairy. And it had nothing to do with wanting him to see her as attractive. Truly.

Gathering her courage, she called forth her magic and transformed.

~*~

Jericho stared transfixed as she became his size. Watching it from high up in his isolated castle was one thing, but to feel the rushing sound of bells whisper through the breeze, scent the rose wash of her body.

He couldn’t move, could only drink her in and wonder why it had taken them so long to meet. Light exploded from her every pore, illuminating her from within and he wanted desperately to move closer to her, just so that he could absorb it into himself.

Where Siria’s brightness was too glaring for him to gaze upon, Calanthe’s wasn’t. Lifting a hand, he swished it through the shimmering veil of her glow, dazzled by her.

And when that light faded and she stepped out, he knew he’d done right by coming here. Her smile was wide, her eyes luminescent and so blue they reminded him of cut sapphires.

Her dress was a waterfall cascade of white rose petals, billowing prettily around her lithe frame as she neared him with the hesitant steps of a doe.

He didn’t move, didn’t even talk, afraid she might try to run away. Jericho sensed that if he didn’t startle her, she would come to him. But what little he knew of fairies, he knew what she was doing was aberrant. A woodland fairy rarely socialized with anyone outside their glen.

His heart was a beating, furious thing, demanding she not leave him. Desperate for her to stay and it took everything he had not to rush her, hold her in his arms until she wanted him with the type of mad craving he felt for her.

Each step she took closer brought not only the scent of roses, but more sweet and exotic perfumes. Because wherever she moved a plethora of flowers bloomed.

Up close, her face was breathtaking. In miniature it was hard to see each and every curve and line. She had eleven freckles scattered along the bridge of her nose. A tiny mole over her lip. Impossibly long, dark lashes that feathered across her upper cheeks like a thick paintbrush.

His stomach knotted and his skin broke out in a fine sheen of sweat.

Finally she sat and he could breathe, because she was beside him. She was here, she was no longer just a dream, a desperate vision revealed in smoke that he could never have. Calanthe was right here.

She sat far enough away that they weren’t touching, but close enough that the air tingled between them. Her hand landed just inches from his own, her fingers stretched out so far that if he really wanted to, he could very easily trace their delicate length.

“I do,” she said.

And he frowned, because for a second he’d completely forgotten what they were speaking about. Quickly he ran through their conversation, realizing she was answering his last statement of wanting to leave.

She shrugged and he inhaled her heady, delicious scent so deep into his lungs he knew that smell would haunt him forever. “Or rather, I did.” She looked up shyly beneath her lashes, and his heart bumped.

But she didn’t give him a chance to contemplate the meaning behind that, when she was asking a question. “What are you doing here, human? A fairy’s glen is not the easiest place to find. Not unless you know where to look.”

His lips twitched. Her innocence was so refreshing. Siria was conniving artifice, Calanthe while much more bold than the average flower fairy, was in so many ways, quite naïve.

“You brought me here, Calanthe,” he said it boldly, ignoring the nerves stringing his gut taut.

Her fine-boned features frowned. “Me?” She patted her chest. “But I’ve never seen you before.”

Unable to keep from touching her a second longer, he traced the curve of her jaw with the pad of his thumb. Her skin was so much softer than he’d thought it would be, in fact, it reminded him of what it felt like when he traced the petal of a rose.

Eyes grown huge in her face, she stared at him and he wondered if she’d ever been touched like this before.

Wrapping her hand around his wrist, she held on. He half expected her to ask him to release her, or for her to eventually let him go. But her fingers were curled and her breathing was hard.

He licked his lips and her eyes zoomed in on the action.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

Being who he was, he understood time. Understood that he had only an hour left before he’d be banished back to his lonely castle. She was letting him touch her, in fact, he sensed she might even let him do more.

And he was tempted.

Goddess was he tempted.

But he wanted to know Calanthe more than just physically, he wanted to know her viscerally. Wanted to understand her in a way no one else did. Wanted her to know him in the same way.

That’s why he forced himself to scoot back, forced his hand away from her, and shuddered at the loss of it. When he looked at her, she too looked just as affected as he’d been. Licking her lips and frantically toying with the end of her braid.

“You know me, Calanthe. You brought me to life,” he forced the words past a throat thick with desire.

A pretty frown kissed her brows. “I don’t…”

Heart so heavy, it almost hurt, he smiled. “My name is Jericho, and I’m the Man in the Moon.”

Chapter 5

“Le sigh,” the Tiger lily fairy Juniper smiled broadly. “This is so romantic,” her little, bell like voice sighed.

“Aye,” Danika nodded. “It is that, but also quite forbidden.” She fixed a stern brow upon her wee charges. “At least back then it was. The scandal of a human and a fairy falling in love. It’s unheard of,” she harrumphed for that added bit of drama.

“Oh no,” the calalily shook her head vehemently, causing the pollen from her dress to scatter through the breeze. “There’s been many more romances between fairies. Why, Guinevere and Lancelot—”

“Aye,” Danika nodded, “and has that tale been butchered, but that is neither here nor there.” She waved her hand, “fact is, when Jericho and Calanthe fell in love, it had never happened before. They were trendsetters to be sure… but their love, as all great romances are I suppose, was doomed from the start. They just didn’t know it then.”

“No!” the loud cry startled Danika, and it took a moment to realize it’d come from within the shadow to her right. Squinting, she fought a grin when she noticed Genevieve.

“I thought you’d gone abed, Gene,” Danika teased the churlish sprite who finally deigned to step into the light.

But rather than come back with a snappy retort, she continued to shake her head. “They’ve only just gotten together and already you tell us it’s doomed. They haven’t even had a chance. It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not. I was going to just skip ahead to the betrayal, but if you’d rather hear a wee bit more about their romance, I could of course, go into more detail.” She studied her nails as if she’d be the one doing Genevieve the favor when, in fact, the romance had always been the best part of the story. “Of course there are parts of it that aren’t quite… erm,” she cleared her throat, “PG rated.”

“What is PG?” the primrose asked.

Danika laughed and shushed her. “None of your business, squirt.” Now, how to tell the full romance without it getting graphic for the children?

Then an idea formed, a positively, evilly, wonderful idea that made her lips twitch. The children would never know.

“Gene dear,” she looked at the sprite, “you might want to plug your nose.”

“Huh?” Was all the sprite could say.

The children looked perplexed as Danika herself slipped an invisible band around her own nose. “Children, do understand when you get a little older, perhaps then I might share, but for now…” Letting her words trail off, she slipped her hand into her pocket and took out the one weapon in her arsenal no fairy should ever be without. A tiny gleaming red vial full of noxious gas.

Literally.

Unstoppering the cork, she released the dragon fart into the air. Eyes growing impossibly wide, the children inhaled before they could pinch their noses shut and within seconds they’d all passed out snoring loudly.

Using her wand to whisk a cleansing breeze through the glen, Danika nodded at Genevieve. “The coast is clear.”

Laughing uproariously, the sprite danced to the very front row and sat cross-legged before the fire. “You are truly cruel, Danika,” she chided.

“Bah, dragon’s fart will only keep them slumbering for an hour. By that point I will have gotten through the best part.” She winked. “Now, we haven’t much time…”

~*~

“The Man in the Moon,” Calanthe whispered and then struck her palm to her forehead. “The moon’s flower! That is you?” Whipping her head around, she stared at him anew. And suddenly the surprise gave way to shock. “You?” The word was just a breath of sound.

He nodded. “You called me to you.”

And where before she’d only been shy, now she was mortified. What did he know? What had he felt? Goddess! She squeaked in her own hand when she thought about the way she’d caressed the petals, how they’d literally seemed to dance and quiver beneath her touch.

Covering her eyes with her hands, she groaned.

But he was gently prying them off her face, and staring at her with eyes that reminded her of rich, fertile soil and she didn’t think. Because if she had, she knew she wouldn’t have done it.