The Bastard Queen (Viciously Yours #2)

The first fingers of sunlight stretched across the grass to cast themselves over my seated form. Even breaths filled my chest, while my eyes never strayed from the patch of grass directly in front of me. Slowly, I placed the tips of my fingers against the ground and then raised them. Nothing happened at first but then with a little nudge and a whisper, nature bent beneath my will. Five healthy flower buds sprung from the ground and stretched to reach where my fingers hovered above them. Opening my hand caused the buds to bloom into delicate white lilies that wavered in the breeze for a moment, bringing with it a sense of calmness.

After Puck had accepted the deal, we all agreed that’d it be better to finish our conversation in the morning. They then suggested that we should all share a room in case we were attacked in the middle of the night but I quickly vetoed that idea. I made them get their own rooms because the absolute last thing I needed right now was an audience to the shit show that was my sleep cycle. While I did owe them the truth about certain things concerning me and Mab, my personal issues weren’t up for discussion.

So as they slept the night away, I ventured out into the woods behind the tavern and practiced calling on the abilities I wasn’t supposed to have. Metal was by far the element that came the most naturally to me, I could bend it to my will with very little to no effort. Earth and fire were more complicated to control as the Seelie were the only ones who knew the techniques to commanding these elements. Unlike the others, they had a will of their own with almost no interest in following someone else’s.

For the first two hours or so, I practiced weaving red flames into a barrier encircling the space around me leaving burn marks in the earth. They rose only as high as the top of my head before my right temple began to pulse in pain. A tell that the element was fighting back, that it wanted to follow its own course and not be directed by another’s. It was at that point that I switched over to earth trying to coax it from its shell to follow my will.

Between the two, earth had always responded much easier to me than fire. It was more willing to bend and follow my direction if I was gentle with it. Instead of bending it sharply to my will like I would with metal, I used soft whispers and nudges to get a response from it. Put simply, I enforce my will upon the elements in three different ways. Metal needed absolute domination, Earth needed a lover’s gentleness, Fire required patience and Water...I didn’t think about water.

With a swish of my hand in a motion much like you’d use to twist a bottle cap, the flowers transformed rapidly. The white petals drifted softly to the ground while the stem thickened and overlapped the top. Bumps covered the newly formed vines until finally the thorns broke through with a gentle caress of my will. Bright green vines covered in black thorns, making them a bitch to pull from your body, twisted and intertwined like a nest of Lamia. Dropping my hand, I urged the vines to grow until they whipped around in the air a couple of feet above my head. Whispering words of fear and protection, I watched with a laugh as the vines turned and began ripping into the air in front of me.

Urging them back into the ground, I shook my head and patted the top of them like you would an obedient dog before they returned to the soil. Standing, I flipped the cloak’s hood back over my head and started towards the tavern. Waist chains bumping my hips as I went, I was just about to exit the treeline when the soldiers from last night came through the back door. It slammed shut behind them as they chatted about making it back to base before the midday drills began. The young male I felt a strange sense of familiarity to was there nodding along to what the others were saying.

Pastel green eyes flickered over his surroundings before they locked onto my royal blue ones. Eyes narrowing, I stared back at him while trying to grab onto the thought that danced just out of reach. I knew this boy from somewhere but where? His own eyes grew warm before his pale lashes lowered following the slight bow of his head. The exchange only lasted a couple of seconds before he flashed a boyish grin to his watching friends and then they all winked out of existence. What the fuck was that? I’d say he was trying to flirt with me except it felt more...platonic and revered but even that didn’t make sense.

He was a Unseelie soldier, he should have disgust and hate for me on behalf of his queen. Why hadn’t he alerted his comrades? There was no way he didn’t see my face, the hood of my cloak was barely sitting a few inches over my hairline. Unless it was just a ploy and they planned to travel back with a squadron of soldiers but he couldn’t know who I was. I’ve never had my portrait commissioned in Tir Na Nog and in prison I’d had a haze spell making my features unrecognizable. No one but fae my own age or older should be able to recognize me by looks alone. And even then, it wasn’t like my features were extoic, there were others with the same hair and eye color as me. Unless they caught sight of my tattoos…

“There you are! Come on, let’s eat! My stomachs eating itself.”

Dani’s shout snapped me out of my thoughts and had me moving to where she stood inside the back door. “Yea, yea.”

“Have you been out here all night?”

“Nah, I came out here an hour or so ago. Couldn’t sleep.”

Pink eyes sparked, “Feel weird sleeping alone?”

I’m always alone these days. I flashed her a impish smile, “I wouldn’t know, Babes. I never sleep alone.”

She laughed before spinning on her heel and walking into the tavern with me following at her back. Sighing, I smoothly made my way through the crowd without touching anyone. Once we reached the table we occupied last night, I sat down and scooted over until I was directly to the side of the window. A perfect position if I needed to make a quick escape.

Across from me was Dani and between us sat Puck, all of us in our clothes from last night although they went without the cloaks this time. Before any of us could speak, a waitress swung by and dropped three steaming bowls onto the table. Puck slid a few coins her way that she quickly snatched up, long turquoise hair streaked with bright orange swaying as she walked away.

“I’m so glad me and Calvins hair color go well together. The pink streaks in his black hair look really cute.” Dani announced, sliding a bowl towards herself.

Taking a bowl as well, I asked, “What’d you gift each other?”

“I thought you were mad about not coming?”

Raising a brow, I said, “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know.”

When a fae pair mated they held a ceremony underneath a great oak tree ringed with white mushrooms. Words spoken out of true love inside the ring between the two fae caused their souls to intertwine. However, if the words spoken in the ring were not true love but something else then the mating wouldn’t be completed. That was always a very embarrassing experience for both the couple and thoses who attended. If it worked though, then steaks of the others hair color would appear on their heads first while their magick reached out to each other.

The fae couldn’t share power but they’d always have a sense of their mates’ well-being. A fae could pick out his or her mate blind folded in a sea of thousands with no problem, the magick inside of them constantly calling out to the other. Lastly, a gift from the heart was given to each other. It wasn’t a real part of the mating but more of a tradition and most of the younger fae tended to skip it nowadays.

Dani’s smile was huge as she reached down to fiddle with something before sitting up and placing it on the table. “Isn’t it just gorgeous?”

Huffing out a laugh, I carefully picked up the blade. It was a short throwing knife with a wicked looking curve but it was the handle that caused my laugh. A black and white panda with huge eyes and a bamboo stalk hanging from the corner of its mouth was painted on it. It warmed my heart to see Dani with Calvin, it was now even more obvious that he was the one for her. As the most profound painter in all of Tir Na Nog, Calvin hated nothing more than painting peoples pets or cartoons. He was a bit of snob about his talents but it worked out because Dani was just as snobbish about them. She never asked him to draw her favorite animal even though she really wanted him to.

“I can’t believe he actually did it.”

“I know,” She replied, dreamily. “He said if I was going to put myself in danger then I could at least do it in style.”

Shaking my head with a small smile, I placed the blade in front of her and shoveled a spoon full of porridge into my mouth. It was bland and a little on the chewy side but it was better than anything I’d eaten in a long time. If it had been rich in flavor my stomach wouldn’t have been able to handle it, not after eating prison food for so long.

A tan hand reached out, fingers gliding over the blade, “What did you give him?”

“A brush set hand-crafted from a Trolls cane.”

Puck let loose a low whistle, “Must have cost a fortune.”

Dani grabbed it and then leaned down to tuck the blade safely back into her boot, “It was worth it to see his paintings come to life.” And she meant that literally, anything crafted using a Trolls cane had the power to bring things to life. Nobody really understood why, it was just another quirk of living in Tir Na Nog.

Using the wooden spoon, I flattened the top of my porridge before digging in and taking a bite. Something about the action just felt extremely satisfying and made the food taste better. Flawed logic, yes. But it never tasted as good if left unflattened. Repeating the action, I was steadily making a dent into the bland food when Puck started speaking.

“So, what happened after you escaped?”

Glancing up, I flicked my eyes from Dani to Puck, “And that’s important to future plans, becauseee?”

The skin between his golden brows wrinkled, “Because you ran into the Commander of Mab’s elite guard and any little detail about that encounter could help us in the future.” At the mention of Cillian’s title, the urge to sneer was almost too strong to fight back but I managed, “Ran out of Slykhelm with iron chains wrapped around my body like a whores thong. Passed through pack territory while they were getting ready to battle. Got this feeling, so I followed the pull to an underground cell holding some rare shifters. Met the leader, made a deal to release each other from our chains and then I battled with them. I asked the leader, Kaiya, to join me but she’s got a hot boy-next-door mate who isn’t as pro-war so she declined. A shame really, the beast she has inside would tear through Mab’s army in the most entertaining of ways.”

Puck smiled, “Sounds like you made a friend.”

“No, she ate another shifter’s head. We’re besties.” I corrected him with what I’m sure was a manic grin. I really should make the time to visit Kaiya, something tells me she’d understand my inner turmoil.

Dani scoffed, “She eats one mesily head and suddenly she’s your best friend?”

“She also lassoed someone with an intestine that she ripped out of somebody else.” I deadpanned.

“Psh, anyone can do that.”

“Jealousy, Jealousy, Babes. It’s an ugly trait.”

Puck cleared his throat before she could yell at me, “How does that tie in with Commander Cillian?”

I rolled my eyes, “He tracked my magic to Kaiya’s cabin like the glorified guard dog he is. I was still in the area looking for a doorway back here when I felt his arrival. So, I popped in and stabbed him with a declaration of war. But I did all that before I knew I had no army to actually go to war with.”

Dani’s head tilted, “You felt him in the area?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But how did-”

“Did he do or say anything unusual? Anything at all that could give us an answer as to why he’s keeping it from Mab?” Puck interrupted.

“Maybe because he’s a bag of dicks.” An unbelievably hot bag of dicks but a bag of dicks no less.

He gave me an unimpressed look, “Then why didn’t you kill him?”

All brain activity screeched to a halt at his question,“What?”

“Why didn’t you kill him when you had the chance? It sounds like you could have, so why didn’t you?”

Well...I uh- He-It wasn’t the- Why?-Because I-, I kept my face carefully blank. It had been his idea to put me in that cell to rott for almost eight hundred years, Why the fuck hadn’t I killed him?

“How else was my declaration of war going to get to Mab?” I countered.

His head tilted, throwing golden hair across his forehead but otherwise seemed to accept that as an acceptable answer. Thank Divines. “So, nothing comes to mind?”

I debated on giving an false answer but then gave in, “Before I stabbed him, he opened his mouth to say something but I didn’t give him the chance.”

“Did it look like he was going to say something good or bad?” Dani asked, tapping her spoon against the table.

I took another bite of my porridge before saying, “I don’t know. The man’s face is as expressive as a slab of stone. Whatever it was, was bad though. He’s never had anything good to say to me.”

Growing up beneath Mab’s kingdom in a cell surrounded by actual criminals was a horrible experience in itself. Add to the fact that the Commander’s hot unemotional teenage son could do no wrong in my eyes and knew that? Yea, it made it so much worse. Cillian Grymes had known that I adored the very ground he walked on even when he pissed me off. Every attempt at speaking to the guards when he was there was shut down. Every kind thing the guards offered would be tossed out or rudely knocked away before I could get it. And whenever I yelled at him for it, he’d alway say the same cryptic thing,‘You don’t want those, Cell Bate.’ The only things he allowed to pass my cell bars where the Choco Blasts his father, Dougal, would pass me. And the Bunny Mellows he’d deliver on behalf of his father when he couldn’t make it.

I angrily chewed on another bite of porridge, I’d kick myself for the way I had acted around him but I’d been a child and even then he’d been gorgeous. The only time I got a rise out of him was when I mockingly called him Lilly and even then it had only been a furrowed brow. To him and everyone else but Dougal and Mab, I was the daughter of some random criminal Fae serving out her mother’s term because she died before it ended. He had, and still has, no idea who I truly am. And just like then, I don’t think it’d really matter either way. In his queen’s eyes, I was the enemy so I was his. And after he sent me to Slykhlem, he was mine.

“I forgot you two had history.” Dani frowned trying to gauge my reaction. She didn’t know the setting of my past but she knew the dynamic of me and Cillian’s relationship or lack thereof.

Pushing the anger aside, I grinned, “Nothing a little iron to his heart can’t fix.”

Her frown grew deeper but as always Puck had impeccable timing, “I have a vague plan as to how we’re going to rebuild your kingdom.”

“Let me guess, we’re going to go find my people group by group and give them some big truthful sales speech about why they should fight for me one last time.” I stated dryly.

Golden eyes blinked, “Well, yes and search out other groups sympathetic to the cause.”

“Little simple, don’t you think?”

“Do you have any other ideas?” He smiled broadly.

I narrowed my eyes at the little shit and flashed pointed teeth.

“That’s okay.” Puck replied, cheerily. “Besides it might be easier than you think. You already have a following. We’re going to meet the leader today.”

What? “A following? How? Last night we established that everyone hates me.”

“No, we said the younger generation didn’t know any better but the older ones know the truth. Some are too afraid to speak out but that doesn’t mean all of them are or that their children, who they told the truth to, are. Especially, since they have a trusted temporary leader.”

That is so not what he said last night. I raised a brow in confusion, “Why didn’t you start with this last night?”

“We wanted you to trust me first. So, that when we told you this you wouldn’t think it was a trap.”

Weary, I gave them a look, “Why would I think it’s a trap?”

They exchanged a glance of their own before Dani finally spoke, “Because Dougal Grymes is their leader.”

Excitement and hope rushed through me at a concerning speed but I quickly stomped it down, “No. No matter what he meant to me all those years ago, he was Mab’s right hand man for centuries and now his son is. So, are you really going to sit there and tell me that this isn’t a trap?”

“Macha. Dougal resigned from his position as the Commander of Mab’s elite guard once he heard about her plans to kill you in battle. He couldn’t go through with it. He said he didn’t have it in him to fight against you and then stand by while you died. He’s on your side, Macha. You’ll see that when we see him later.”

I shook my head, “Your trying to tell me Dougal turned his back on Mab and his eldest son for me? No fucking way.”

“It’s not a trap, I promise.” Puck said. “We need to see him, Macha. It’s the only place safe enough for you to hide out in and it’ll house all your troops. If you want to go to war against Mab and win? Then you need to trust us and you need to trust Dougal.”

I eyed them for a long time going over all the different ways this could go to shit. I obviously didn’t trust Puck but I did trust Dani and the little girl in me was screaming that Dougal could never hurt us. I was absolutely terrified that I’d end up in a cell once again but war was all about risk and if I wanted to win I needed to take some. That didn’t mean I had to make it easy for them, though.

“Fine, we go. Tomorrow and if I feel even one inkling of a trap? I’m going to start slicing and dicing until the only thing left around me is body parts, understood?”

“Understood.” They parroted.

And I hope they truly did, because I’d kill anyone including myself before I saw the inside of a cell again.

—

For this book, I’m planning on challenging myself by creating a more complex plot than I did for Feral Born. And lemme tell y’all the things I have planned for Macha give me an insane urge to cackle. Btw, what do y’all think of Macha and Cillians past???

As always, feel free to leave a comment on anything you enjoyed!

Smooches, Verbage💋