Shadow Blood: Kallen's Tale (Witch Fairy #4.5) (16 page)

That is a gross exaggeration.  She used magic and cleaned it up in two minutes.  “I am perfectly capable of making my own breakfast.”

A spatula appears in her hand and I just barely miss being swatted with it.  The Fairy is fast with her kitchen utensils.  “Get on out of my kitchen before I have to scrape you off the counters and walls.  You go get that girl of yours and bring her down here.  I think I have figured out how to rid of her those pieces of souls.”

“Really?”  I will gladly let her take out her bad mood by swatting me if this is true.

“No, I have spent the night drinking ale and playing cards.”  She is lying.  She hates ale.  “Now go and get her before I suddenly forget how to do it.”  In a swift movement, I lean in and kiss her cheek before racing from the room.  I did not miss the corners of her lips turning up.

Alita is awake, barely, and reading a book in one of the chairs near the end of the bed when I open the door to Xandra’s room.  She looks relieved when she sees me.  “How was it?” I ask.

Alita shrugs.  “She has slept the night through,” she says through a yawn.

“Thank you for taking over for me last night.  I feel terrible that you have not been able to rest considering what you have been through.”

Alita stands up and crosses the room to give me a hug.  “I am your friend, I will not hold a few hours of sleep against you.”  Stepping back, she says, “But I will leave you now if you are ready to face her again.”

“I am fine,” I assure her.  She has no idea how relieved I am that she kept Xandra out of trouble.  Alita truly is a good friend.  Why she is in love with Kegan I will never understand.  She is way too good for him.

After Alita leaves, I decide it is best to wake Xandra up from afar.  I stand in the doorway and use a magically created feather to tickle her cheek.  It does not take long before she stirs. 

Annoyed, she sits up.  “Will you please get rid of the feather?  And why are you way over there?”  When I do not answer her question fast enough, she puts her face in her hands and says, “What did I do?”

“
You
did not do anything.  Your little friend, however, went to great lengths to torture me.  I slept in my own room.”

I am next to the bed now and she frowns up at me.  “They are not my little friends.  Was it that bad?”

That is a tricky question.  “Bad, no.  Tempting beyond belief?  Almost.  But, if I am going to participate in anything involving your body, I want to be sure it is you in charge of it.”

A wicked smile curves around her lips.  “Does that mean I can tempt you beyond belief right now?” she purrs and she pulls me to her, meeting my lips in a fiery good morning kiss.

She. Is. Killing.  Me.  “It was difficult enough leaving your luscious, beautiful body last night.  If you tempt me with it as my precious Witch Fairy, I fear I would not leave this bed until I have made love to you,” I say against her beautiful lips.

Bringing her lips back to mine and tugging on me until I am lying next to her is not the response I expected.  But I am not complaining.  Until I feel someone at the door.

With great reluctance, I pull back from the kiss.  “I forgot to tell you the reason I came to wake you.  Tabitha believes she may have found a way to exorcise your demons.”

A strange look washes over face.  “Mine aren’t really demons. I hate that I have to send them back to hell.”

What?  “You are not thinking of keeping them, are you?  I fear what would happen between us if you did.”

It takes a moment for that to sink in.  When it does, color floods her cheeks.  “I guess it’s not always easy to tell who’s in charge of my body, huh?”

I let go of the air I have had trapped in my lungs for too long.  “No, it is not at first.  I would hate to make a mistake as the ‘barnacles’ become better at behaving as you do.”

A gentle knock on the door saves her from replying.  “Come in,” she calls out.

Alita peaks her head around the door.  “Xandra?” she asks.  She is asking more than what she said.

Xandra grimaces.  “Yes, it’s me.”

Alita smiles and opens the door a bit further.  “I hate to disturb you two, but Isla asked me to hurry you along.”  Huh, I thought she was going to bed when she left the room.  I guess insomnia rules the house right now.

“We’ll be right down,” Xandra says, pushing the covers back and getting up.

“I’ll let her know.”  Alita closes the door behind her.

I rise from the bed and reach out for Xandra pulling her close.  “I love you.”

She nestles into me and wraps her arms around my waist.  “I love you, too.”  Pulling back, she looks up at me and says, “I’ll brush my teeth and comb my hair, then I’ll be right down.”

“Sounds good.”  I give her a quick kiss on the cheek.  No sense tempting our hormones with a real kiss.  If we do not go downstairs soon, someone else will come to retrieve us.  Probably someone who can move through walls. 

As if reading my mind, I sense Kegan in the hallway.  Feeling like a heel but asking anyway, I say, “Would you mind terribly going through the explanation about your aunt with your parents by yourself?  I would like to take a quick run.”

Xandra laughs.  “You don’t have to be at my side every minute.  Of course I don’t care.”

That earns her another kiss on the cheek.  And a quick one on her lips.  I pull back before I get carried away though.  “I will find you in a bit.”

“Okay.”

Kegan is just about to knock when I open the door so he stumbles a bit.  He gives my grin a sour look.  “Thanks.  How kind of you to open the door.”

“Is that sarcasm?” I ask stepping out into the hall.  I punch him in the arm as I pass him.

“You do realize I am not a punching bag right?” he asks, rubbing his arm.

“Really?  Huh, I guess I was misinformed.”

“You are certainly in a mood, cousin,” he drawls.  “Where are you off to?”

I look back over my shoulder.  “I am going for a run.  You may join me if you think you can keep up.”

Kegan snorts.  “I believe it is I who is the lighter foot.  You have not beaten me yet.”

“We will see.”

Kegan follows me down the stairs and out to the beach.  Losing my t-shirt, I start running and he has no trouble keeping up.  I may be stronger with magic, but Kegan and I have always been pretty well matched physically.  He makes sure of it.

We run for several minutes without talking.  It is Kegan who finally breaks the silence.  “I would like to apolo…”

“Stop,” I say without breaking stride.  “I do not want to hear another apology.  And I am sure you do not want to issue another one.  In the past is where that all belongs.”

It is several more minutes before Kegan says, “You run pretty well for an old hand-fasted man.”  I push him sideways and he trips over the sand but does not fall.  Laughing, he adds, “I thought you had given up on exercise since I have not seen you work out since you came home.”

He is right.  I have not.  “No time with all the trouble Xandra manages to get tangled up in.”

He chuckles.  “She does seem to have an inordinately long string of bad luck going on.  After all, look who she is dating.”

I push him again and this time he does fall, but he is laughing.  I stop running and turn around.  Now that I have stopped, I realize I neglected to do my normal stretches before starting out.  I can feel the tightness in my calves.  “And you seem to currently have an inordinately long streak of pissing me.”

Standing back up, he brushes the sand off.  “Yes, I believe it has been going on since birth.”

I shake my head and laugh.  “Yes, I believe it has.”  Looking around, I take in how far we have gone.  About two and a half miles.  Not bad for not stretching.  “We should head back.  I promised Xandra I would not be long.”

The run back brings lively banter between Kegan and me.  We find ourselves slipping into our old pattern of wisecracks and physical competition.  We stay neck and neck the entire way back though both of us have little spurts of jumping ahead only to find the other is just as capable.  By the time we are back home, everything feels normal between us again.

Which makes the drama playing out in the kitchen even more unbearable.  Lately it seems that as soon as one thing is made right, something else goes violently wrong.  This violence is going to be perpetrated by Xandra I believe.  Because for some reason, the assassin who tried to kill her is sitting on a stool looking grim.  Maurelle.

My voice could freeze Shadows when I say, “You are not welcome in this house.”

Her eyes narrow in my direction but the lovesick puppy that lives inside of her shines through her eyes.  A chill runs down my spine at the thought.  “I brought the king a message.” 

To my great surprise, Xandra chuckles.  “You didn’t know Kallen was here, either, did you?” I am not sure what that has to do with anything.

Maurelle glowers at Xandra.  “No, I did not.”  Dagda is quiet.  He still looks furious, but I think he wants to see how this plays out.

“And you offered to bring it because you were hoping to see Kegan?”  Xandra turns to my now white faced cousin.  “I didn’t know you had a fan club.”  Maurelle is anything but white at the moment.  She has more of a purplish hue going on.

Kegan laughs nervously.  “This is the first I have heard of it myself.”

Alita chooses this moment to walk in.  She heard this exchange and she is not happy.  She turns on her heels and walks right back out of the kitchen.  Kegan is smart enough to go after her.

Xandra turns her attention back to Maurelle.  “Is there anywhere that you’re welcome, or do you make people dislike you wherever you go?”

I understand why Xandra is taunting her, but she needs to remember how underhanded and violent Maurelle can be.  Dagda understands.  Maurelle reaches into her pocket to pull out what I assume would be a Fairy dart but her hand stills when Dagda says, “Maurelle, if you are about to perpetrate violence against my daughter, you will be tried for treason as per the edict I issued.”

“I would never,” Maurelle lies ducking her head in an effort to appear sincere.

“That is not the first lie you have spoken since arriving unwelcome in this house.  I will be discussing this with you later, and you will not find the discussion enjoyable.  Leave.”  I am not sure why Dagda has kept her on staff since doing an about face in regards to Xandra.  Whatever his reason was, she is definitely on her way out now.  Maurelle slinks out the back door with one quick over the shoulder glare in Xandra’s direction.  Her expression promises revenge that she is not strong enough to pull off.  A useless waste of her facial muscles.

You would think the tension in the room would drop now but Tabitha seems determined to keep it alive and well.  “Well, that was a bright spot on an already glorious day,” Tabitha says, getting up and stirring her soup again.  “Close friend of yours, I take it?” she asks Xandra.  Tabitha knows exactly who Maurelle is and what Dagda sent her to do.  I cannot believe she did not throw her out of the kitchen herself.  Perhaps like Dagda, she wanted to see how Xandra handled it as well.

Xandra snorts.  “Yeah, about as close as you can get with the person sent to kill you.”

Not looking up from the pot on the stove, Tabitha says, “Hmm, in a perfect world, it would have been the person who sent her after you who journeyed to hell.  It is a shame it is not a perfect world.”

“Perhaps the Fairy who raised me is to blame,” Dagda growls. 

Tabitha twirls around, slinging cat potion all over us.  Great, it is going to take a couple of showers to get rid of this stench.  Perhaps Xandra can heal offensive odors as well. 

“I will not take responsibility for the choices you made because your pride overcame your common sense and decency.  I did not raise you to be that way.”

This is news to Xandra.  I guess none of us has mentioned that Tabitha used to work for Dagda’s family.  “You raised him?”

Dagda has a somewhat smug look on his face now as he says, “After my mother died, Tabitha came to live with us at the palace.  She made me into the Fairy I am today.”

Magic is going to start flying any minute now.  I am tempted to grab Xandra and run, letting the two of them duke it out in private.  Instead, I simply move to her side, ready to shield her if necessary.  Not necessarily from magic.  More likely from Tabitha physically attacking Dagda.

Xandra takes a different route.  She steers the conversation back to where it should be.  “Tabitha, no one believes that, and I know he’s being a pain, but could you kill him later?  I’m hoping that scroll has something written on it that will help.”

When Tabitha turns back to the stove, Dagda is smart enough to keep his mouth shut.  He takes Xandra’s cue and picks up the scroll.  Unrolling it, he scans the text.  “This might work,” he says, looking up at Xandra.

“What do we have to do?” she asks.

“Kallen, will you please contact Isla. She will want to be here.”  Yes, and she will love me contacting her this way.  But I know that Xandra does not have the patience for me to go looking for her.

To prove my point, she says, “Okay, now please tell me what it says.”

Dagda looks up at her and smiles.  “Oh, how alike we are.”