Fourteen

Silas

“ S hine,” I say, as I approach the woman. I knew she’d be in the Elven Realm, close enough to watch over Moon, but not so close that she posed a threat to Moon’s safety.

The woman who looks so much like Moon pulls the massive battleax she wields out of the dead goblin's skull and spins to face me.

“Silas,” Shine says, tipping her head to me. I’m not surprised she knows who I am. She watches over Moon very closely. “What do you need?” she asks, and I sigh.

Should I tell her why I’ve come and risk her fighting me, or should I just do what needs to be done and worry about her wrath afterward?

She cannot say much at the moment, so it’s probably best to get this over with.

“I apologize. This may be painful,” I warn, then get to work. This could take a while.

Moon

“Murder Noodle!” I practically shout when I see my little white snake boy after my shower. He left nearly twenty-four hours ago, and I was starting to worry about him.

Rushing over, I scoop him up and kiss his little snoot. Of course, Silas isn’t super excited about being treated like a little baby snake, so he transforms, forcing me to drop him.

“I’m so glad you’re back.” Throwing my arms around him, I tug him down so I can kiss him for real now.

“I missed you,” Silas says, as he wraps his arms around me and hugs me tight.

He sounds tired, and I pull back to get a good look at him. He looks exhausted.

“Are you okay?” I ask, and he nods.

“I am okay, just tired. It was a long process and took a lot of energy. A lot of magic. Your mother is here, resting in one of the rooms.”

“Oh. Oh!” I guess I’m a little shocked he was successful, but I don’t know why. He’s very powerful.

“I’m going to lie down. You should go see her. Once you’re dressed…” His words make me chuckle. He slowly makes his way over to the bed and plops right down onto it. I think he’s asleep in seconds.

My other men are all sitting around the room we’re sharing, reading or napping. We have just been waiting for Silas to return. Because of the time, I don’t think we’ll leave here until tomorrow.

Silas needs to rest, and I can’t have a conversation with my mother if she’s also resting. I still get dressed and slip out of the room in search of my mother anyway. She’s across the hall from me, and when I walk into the room, she’s asleep in the bed.

I remain still, watching her and seeing if I feel like I’m getting sick. When I feel nothing, I take a few steps closer. She remains perfectly still. Whatever magic Silas worked on her, it’s drained her energy as well as his.

“Mom?” I whisper. If she’s sleeping lightly, she might hear me. If not… I wait a few seconds, but she doesn’t respond, so I turn to leave.

“Moon?” she murmurs, and I whip back around to face her. She’s looking at me, her eyes half open. She’s exhausted. “Did it work?” she asks, and I shrug, walking closer to her.

“Say something you couldn’t say before?” I suggest, then wince. “Maybe wait until you’ve fully recovered,” I add. Even though I now know her absence from my life wasn’t because she’d abandoned me but because of the curse, I still have a lot of resentment I need to work through. I haven’t exactly had the time to do that. It might take me a little bit of time to stop sassing her. To learn not to hold our past against her.

“Steve is not your father,” she says, then pauses. My eyes go wide as I wait to see if she’s going to cough up blood.

“Glad you’re not dying… Also, I knew that. Why did you lie about that for the first five years of my life?” I ask.

“He helped get me out of the palace when the Fae Queen took control of the kingdom. Your father–”

“Is the Fae King, yeah, I’ve recently learned that. Also discovered I’m half Goddess. Of chaos.” I lift my brow at her as I take a seat beside her on the edge of her bed, and she scoots herself up until she’s sitting against the headboard.

“I couldn’t tell you any of it. Steve lied to me about so many things. I trusted him. He’d been my best friend for years. He followed me to the Fae Realm when I was drawn there. He is Fae after all. He became my guard when I mated your father. He’s not the man I thought he was.” My mother looks away from me, glancing down at her hands. “Can I hug you?” she whispers so softly I almost miss it. I freeze. I haven't hugged my mother in twenty years.

Clearing my throat, I nod, then lean in so she doesn’t have to move as far to reach me. The second her arms are wrapped around me, she starts crying.

“Oh, Moonlight. My baby girl,” the way she cradles my head against her chest cracks something open in my heart. Something I had buried under a mountain of heartbreak and years of disappointment. “I’m so sorry. I watched over you every single day. I never left you, I thought I was doing the right thing. I could have tried to tell you everything, but I–I wasn’t sure it wouldn’t kill me. I don’t expect your forgiveness. I know I don’t deserve it. I could have told your Grams the truth, but I was scared. I let that fear control me, and then it was too late. I’m no longer scared. Your mate, the Light One, if I had known he was capable of the kind of magic that could break the binds that kept me from you–” Her voice breaks as she lets out a sob.

“It’s fine, Mom,” I say, but she shakes her head.

“It’s not. Nothing about this is fine or okay. You will live a long life, but I missed the most important days of your childhood. Days that you and I can never get back.” She cries, and I shake my head. I don’t know what to say. Twenty years of anger and pain don’t just go away with one hug, but maybe this could be the start of something new for us.

“What do we do?” I ask.

“We take that bitch out. Set her ass on fire, and free my fucking mate!”

The anger in my mother’s voice startles me a bit after such an emotional moment, and I can’t help but giggle. I pull away from her hug, but she doesn’t let me get far. She gets a hold of my hand and keeps me on the bed beside her.

“Maybe we should get my guys in here,” I say before we start making any plans.

“No, I will go to your room, it’ll be easier–”

“No, I think they should come in here,” I say quickly, cutting her off. I don’t give her time to argue, I just jump to my feet and rush out the door.

“I need all of you across the hall, please. Quickly, before my mother comes in here,” I announce before basically running back across the hall in case she tries to get up.

I hear the men stomping after me, and they follow me into the room. My mother sits up more as the men gather around her bed.

“So, the Fae King–”

“Lark,” my mother offers.

“Okay. The Fae King, whose name is Lark…I guess…is my father.” I look over at Fenrick, who grimaces. “And the guy that raised me for five years, and the reason I entered the Elven games, is Fenrick’s father.”

“What?” my mother asks, and I look from her to Fen and back.

“What, what?” I ask, confused. She stares at Fen for so long that I wonder if she’s fallen asleep with her eyes open.

“Oh… Oh… OH!” My mother throws the blankets off her lap and jumps to her feet. She wobbles, and I stand to help steady her, but she dodges me.

“You good?” I ask her, and she ignores me.

“It all makes sense now! He wasn’t trying to be a shady fuck…”

“It’s creepy how similar you two are,” Tristan mumbles.

“He was working to protect you!” My mother walks over to Fen and looks him up and down. “Fuck, you look just like him. I hadn’t laid eyes on you until the games. I just assumed she got knocked up by some rando. Lark cannot get anyone but me pregnant. We’re mates. Your mother didn’t arrive in the kingdom until after I’d conceived Moon.” My mother starts pacing the room, and my mates move to give her space.

“They were betrothed, you know? We were keeping our love secret until he could break it to her gently. As I’m sure most of you are aware, she did not take it well. She moved quickly, sinking her claws into Lark and poisoning his mind. Steve got me out of there quickly in the middle of the night. I figured out that he was already working for the Queen, but it was too late to do anything about it. By then, I was already cursed. I thought Steve had betrayed me because he saw her as his Queen, but this makes so much more sense.” My mother turns and points at Fen. “You…”

“What do we do now? How do we free the King from Fen’s mother?” I ask, looking around at my men and then my mother. “I was planning on just having Cato set her on fire.” I shrug. “Steve is using Lust as leverage… He wants me to kill the Queen.”

“Fuck, I was wondering why I hadn’t heard from him in so long.” My mother falls silent for a bit, looking around as she thinks. “We gather allies, then confront her. We’re no match for her army, but you are the rightful heir as the King's only child,” my mom says, looking at me. “I could not reveal I was his mate before, but I can now.”

“We have the Elven Realm on our side,” Crow offers.

“We should visit our mother and my father,” Arlo says, looking around. “They will offer their support, as well, I’m sure of it.”

“There are many guards in the palace, men I grew up with, who will gladly stand against my mother,” Fen adds.

“My mother’s coven will aid us as well. We should visit with her first. She’ll want to know everything,” my mother says, and I nod. Grams is probably ready to kick my butt since I haven’t contacted her yet.

“Evangela will come for me soon,” Warrior says, drawing all of our attention to him now.

“Okay, Mom, in the morning you go to Grams and fill her in. The guys and I will go rid the realms of a Necromancer and meet you there,” I offer, like it’s normal to casually discuss murder. At this rate, in this family, it basically is.

“Or, we go to the Orc Realm and set a trap for her,” Crow offers, looking to Arlo and Tristan for their opinion.

“My father asked me to return as soon as I could. We could head there in the morning, tell them what's happening, and then set the trap?” Arlo asks.

“Okay. Let's do that. Silas and my mother can rest before we go balls to the wall in another fight. Can you give me a minute with my mom?” I ask the guys and then wait for them to leave before I speak. “Now that we have a plan…” I trail off, stepping in front of her because she’s still pacing the room. “Can you tell me what we are?”

“Goddesses. In a way. Immortal. I come from a realm where everyone is like us. The kind of Goddess we become is inherited, but it can be anything in your past bloodline. I am a Goddess of Disarray and Disorder. You are Chaos. Not the same but similar. Our powers come from the world around us, but once we mate our Heart Bonded, our full power emerges,” Mom sighs. “Go be with your men. I need to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning,” she says before pulling me in for another hug.