Moon's Flower: A tale of Hidden Kingdom Read online

  Pinching her lips as sadness pricked her heart, Danika nodded slowly. “Oh, aye, dearies… I remember. I remember very well…”

  ~*~

  “Tell me everything,” Calanthe sighed dreamily, rubbing her nude form along Jericho’s body. They’d been making love for hours now. Sometimes hard and furious, but mostly slow and steady and full of murmured endearments. Whispered promises they both knew they couldn’t keep.

  Rubbing his palm along the silkiness of her hair, he asked, “About what?”

  “About you. Where you came from before you became the Man in the Moon. Who is Siria? Why me?”

  She ticked so many questions off that he couldn’t help but laugh at her enthusiasm.

  “One question at a time, love. Otherwise I’m liable to get dizzy.”

  Sliding up on an arm, she stared at him. His eyes glazed over for a second seeing her luscious, nude body bared to him. But his body was sated, even so it was nice to look.

  “Why me?” she asked softly. “How did you notice me? In all the stars, all the galaxies in the world…”

  Brushing his knuckles upon the softness of her cheek, he smiled. “Because you saw me first.” Frantic with his need to get closer to her, he pulled her hand into his and brought it to his chest, so that she could feel the thumping of his heart. “You touched me, Calanthe. In that knoll, you drew out my soul and you saw me.”

  Nibbling on her lip as a beautiful blush stole across the breadth of her cheeks, Jericho felt a fullness he’d never felt before. A rightness to his life, to this moment. That no matter what happened before, or after, right now this was absolutely where he was meant to be. With her, touching and holding her, and watching her eyes fill with love for him. It was humbling and made it hard to swallow.

  “I saw a flower, Jericho. A beautiful flower and when I…” She trailed off, the song in the cave still moved melodically around them. Low and haunting.

  “Go on,” he urged her, curious what she meant to say.

  She sighed, giving him a shy glance from the corner of her eye. “I’m a flower fairy, Jericho, there’s not much else that a being like me should want or crave, and yet…” her eyes were huge and luminescent in her pale, freckled face, “and yet, when I touched you,” she trailed a finger down the bridge of his nose, “I wanted so much more.”

  Nipping at the finger she now had rested against his lips, he smiled. “Long ago, when I was simply a man tending sheep in the lowlands, we had a saying among my people.”

  “Yes?”

  “That the soul knows.”

  He expected her to ask him what that meant, or to ask him to expound further, but all she did was lean in and kiss him. “I know,” she whispered, and then laughed softly. “I never believed in love at first sight. Simply thought it a myth humans invented because their lives were so dull. But it is not a myth, simply a reality few souls ever get to truly witness.”

  “Aye,” he nodded. “A distinction Siria doesn’t understand.”

  “Siria,” her brow lifted, “and again we return to the sun. Why do I feel like she is very important to us, Jericho?”

  Calanthe was no fool, a trait he respected and appreciated. Playing the fool was a game he’d grown weary of through the years thanks to Siria’s constant scheming.

  Twirling a ribbon of her luscious, nut brown hair around his finger, he nodded. “She is, Calanthe. And should she ever discover what we’ve done, as I suspect she has a good inkling of, things might not go so well for us.”

  Clasping his hand, forcing his eyes to her face, she shook her head. “Why? Why does she care? I understand that the sun and moon are tied through nature, but is it true also of their… bodies?” The last was a whisper so low it was more a breath than an actual sound.

  Jerking up, so that he could pull her tight into his embrace, he knew the only way to ever truly gain her trust was to be upfront about everything. “Once, Calanthe, we were. It is why she brought me here to this land to begin with. She fancied herself in love with me.”

  Her eyes were closed and her cheek pressed to his when she asked, “And you?”

  Inhaling deeply, wishing more than anything that he could deny it, he shook his head. “Once, I believed it so.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment, merely curled her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “And now?”

  Pulling back, so that he could frame her face, he shook his head. “That ended almost two centuries ago. For me anyway.”

  She frowned. “I do not think that I could respect a man who has left a woman to pine away for him.”

  Calanthe made to move out of his arms completely. It had never even crossed his mind that that would be her first assumption. “Calanthe, do you think so low of me to believe that I could do something like that?”

  She laughed. “As much as I believe in love at first sight, the fact is, Jericho, I barely know ye. It could be that I’ve fallen for a cad and—”

  With a growl, he silenced her words with a breath stealing kiss, desperate to make her understand him. “No. The truth is Siria, apart from cheating on me repeatedly, is a heartless, vindictive woman.” He shook his head, thinking of the things that she’d done.

  “Like what?”

  She licked her lips and Jericho wasn’t sure why he felt so loathe to share her misdeeds. The truth was Siria had done so many terrible things, but him just telling those things to Calanthe wasn’t really proof, in fact, down the line she could misconstrue him telling her as him simply lying to make himself appear more redeemable. He did want truth between she and he, but not at the expense of another.

  “Calanthe, my dear sweet fairy.” He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “I could tell a million stories, but I refuse to degrade another that way. Because while she’s been cruel to me, she’s been nothing but kindness to this glen and to your kind and that is all you should know. That, and that I desperately love you and probably always will.”

  Their gazes held for interminable amount of time. It felt like eternity wrapped up in a second.

  “My heart is breaking,” she finally said, pressing his palm to her breast. Over the beating of her heart. “You are leaving me. I sense it.”

  He was trying with all his might not to think of what must be, to simply live and breathe in this moment, but he couldn’t deny her the right to know. Nostrils flaring, he briefly jerked his head forward. “I must, you know I cannot stay.”

  “No.” She clenched her jaw. “I’m not speaking of our month long separation. You’re never coming back.”

  She wasn’t asking a question, so he wasn’t going to pretend she was. “Her crows saw us. Calanthe, there is much in this life I do not like, but it would kill me if anything ever happened to you. I have no choice.”

  “Is she really so much of a devil?”

  “Worse. So much worse.”

  ~*~

  Calanthe watched the moonbeam come and take him and in her heart she didn’t want to believe that it was over for them. But the mind understood what the heart could not. It was over, and even though it felt like she was dying, she couldn’t regret it and wouldn’t take it back. For as long as she lived, she would love him.

  But sometimes that was the way of love, it wasn’t always perfect and rarely had a happy ending, but that didn’t make it any less perfect.

  Hanging onto the bark of a tree trunk she stood staring at the dusky sky, knowing he couldn’t watch her during the day, but hoping all the same that his eye would never stray far from her. That somehow, even though space and stars separated them, that she’d always feel him near.

  They’d talked for so long she felt like she knew him intimately. Knowing they were soon to be separated they’d shared their truths and most intimate thoughts with one another. The fact was Calanthe might not like it, but his reasons for leaving were sound. Siria was a problem neither of them could hope to deal with.

  “Calanthe, I cannot believe what you have done,” June’s voice was full of censure an
d reproach.

  Twirling with a startled, little cry, Calanthe grabbed her chest. “All this sneaking about and spying on me must stop, June.”

  “Is it wrong to worry over my friend?”

  “Stop, please.” Calanthe held up a hand. “I love you, sister, I do. But you must leave this be.

  June’s snail shell cap was gone, her wild orange locks framed her long face. Frowning, Calanthe’s lips thinned.

  “How far did you follow us, June?”

  “You gave me no choice.” June shook her head hard. “You run off, you think I didn’t know what night it was. What you’d be doing? What you did.”

  Eyes widening, heart pounding, Calanthe took a step back. Had June seen it all? A sick, horrible feeling spread like rot through her gut, because of all the fairies Calanthe knew, June was perhaps the most honorable.

  There were no grays with her friend. Right was right and wrong was wrong and that was the plain truth of it. The fact that June had kept her secret about the seed was enormous. Clasping her hands, Calanthe squeezed her eyes shut. “You cannot speak of this, June.”

  “That’s what you keep telling me, speak of this to no one, June. If you love me, don’t tell.” Her voice was rich with exasperation. “What about me, Calanthe? Hmm?”

  “I never told you to follow me. In fact, I told you to leave it be, did I not?”

  June looked as shocked as if she’d been slapped. “I am your friend, and it is my duty to see that you are safe.”

  “Dear, I was perfectly safe.” She smiled and spread her arms wide. It was true, there was a becoming flush to Calanthe’s body, even the petals of her dress were a lustrous, rich ivory. “Do I not look well?”

  June’s eyes dropped to her feet, then traveled slowly up, before coming to rest on Calanthe’s face. “I fear for you. For what you’re becoming.”

  Sensing that her friend was no longer angry, but worried, Calanthe rolled her eyes and rushed her so that she could hug June’s slim shoulders.

  “You worry overmuch, snail. I am fine. In fact, I am more than fine. I am in love.”

  The minutest of expressions crossed her friend’s face, so quick that Calanthe doubted whether she’d seen it at all or whether it was just a figment of her overactive imagination.

  “You will be the death of me, flower,” June’s words were filled with long-suffering warmth.

  “Aye, I suspect I might.”

  Lifting her chin high, Calanthe held out her arm. “Lead the way, slow poke. I believe I owe you a race.”

  June scoffed. “Slow poke, we’ll see about that!”

  And just like that, all was right with Calanthe’s world.

  ~*~

  “Head Mistress,” a small voice stuttered from behind the large spider web swing in the corner of The Blue’s mushroom home.

  Galeta twirled at the sound. She’d only just returned to the glen, her meeting at the summit of good versus evil had lasted longer than she’d at first anticipated. It made her twitchy to be gone from her post for so long.

  But she was glad she’d stayed the extra week, because there was (she’d discovered) a serious shortage of godmothers working for the villains of the world. Which was ironic to say the least, because why should something so despicable earn the privilege of possessing their own godmother? She’d opposed the edict, stating that evil got what it deserved. But she was outvoted. Resource claimed that statistically villains were less likely to do evil when they had a voice of reason behind them.

  She rolled her eyes, setting down her valise. Well, that was neither here nor there at the moment.

  “Show yourself, fairy.” Quirking a brow, she withdrew her wand from the voluminous folds of her icicle-blue gown. When the shadow failed to budge from the wall, she shot a bolt of her power at the swing, causing it to light up and reveal the worried face of one of her snail Fae.

  A short, pixie haired fairy with piercing gray eyes who continued to stare at her feet, even when Galeta cleared her throat for the wee thing to continue.

  “Fine.” She snapped her fingers, lighting the lanterns affixed to her mushroom walls. “You have three seconds to tell me what it is you want, Jinger—”

  “It’s June, ma’am,” the snail mumbled.

  “What was that?” Galeta leaned in. It wasn’t that she hadn’t heard her, it was that she had very little patience for simpering and timidity. Galeta was of the mind that if you were bold enough to break into someone’s home, you were bold enough to speak up.

  Taking a fortifying breath and squaring her shoulders, the fairy turned her face up. “I said it’s June, ma’am.”

  “Aye.” Galeta huffed, as folded slips of clothing floated from her suitcases to her bedroom dresser. She always hated cleaning up after returning home from an extended trip. “Well, then, why have you broken into my home? Anything that needs to be said could have been spoken at the games tonight, could it not?”

  Nibbling on a corner of her lip, June looked as if she was soon to faint. Disgusted, Galeta growled.

  “I’ve very little patience for games, snail. Either tell me why you’re here or I shall strip your wings for daring to enter my home while I was away.”

  “You… you must promise me that she will not be harmed.”

  The words seemed ripped from June, and her constant fidgety manner, was an obvious clue that the snail wished to be anywhere other than where she was now.

  Galeta’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Harm who?”

  Nostrils flaring, breath scissoring through her lungs audibly, the poor Fae looked as if she was ready to expire any second now. “Ca…Calanthe.”

  The name immediately pricked Galeta’s ears. The fairy had the devil in her, had ever since the night of her birth beneath the roses. Calanthe had been a thorn in Galeta’s side for ages, prone to do whatever her emotions led her to, reckless and wild and often without regard for rules or regulations.

  “What has that chit gone and done now?” She asked with exhaustion lacing her words.

  “She stole from you, ma’am,” her words were a jumbled murmur. Galeta could barely make out what she’d said. All she’d heard was ‘blah, blah, blah, ma’am.’

  Gods, snails were so incredibly stupid. Why couldn’t they have half the brain of the flower fairy? It would make understanding them so much easier. With a roll of her eyes, and a rumbly growl in the back of her throat she said, “would you mind saying that again and this time speak up.”

  Clearing her throat, June squared her shoulders and said, “I said, ma’am, that Calanthe stole from you, ma’am.”

  Nostrils flaring, Galeta cocked her head. “Stole what?” There were treasures untold she kept hidden in her home, that Calanthe would dare to enter without her express permission first made The Blue experience the type of frosty fury she was infamous for. Clenching her fists until her nails dug into the palms of her hands, she took a step closer to the fairy before her, “answer me now, June, tell me all I wish to know, or you too shall suffer the same fate as your dear friend.”

  June turned her head to the side, but not before Galeta witnessed the flash of pain scrawl across her face. “A moon flower seed.”

  “She did what!” Taking a step closer, Galeta didn’t think, she grabbed June by her tunic, and shoved her face so close that their breaths mingled. “When did she take that?”

  June mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like two months ago.

  “Did you say two months? Please tell me that you did not say two months, because if, in fact, you did say two months, then I shall very likely kill you myself for keeping that from me for so long.”

  To threaten to kill another fairy was a crime that could very likely land her before The Ten, the high faerie council, but June would never tell because Galeta was simply too powerful. Besides she had no need to strip June’s wings or plunge a knife through her heart, fear would keep this fairy very loyal now.

  “Please don’t hurt me, Galeta, I’ve wanted to tell you I did, but I
wasn’t sure whether to approach you when you returned or while you were away at the council, and she has stopped since I swear it. I’ve kept a close eye on her.”

  “Ah, but you’re not telling me everything are you? Because if you say that she only stole once, and yet you’ve continued to keep an eye on her there must be a reason, no?”

  The one thing Galeta had always been good at was her ability to suss out a lie. there were good liars, and there were bad liars. It was always harder to spot a good liar, but June was not a good liar. Her eyes were shifty, her skin moist, and her throat bobbed like an apple’d been stuck in it. There was more to this story, of that she had no doubt.

  And she knew her hunch was right immediately, because June was squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Come on, June, I am your mistress, you know you can tell me anything.” A smile grew large on her heart shaped face. “Trust me, child, I only want what’s best for Calanthe.”

  “You will not hurt her?” The words were a whisper of sound.

  Smile still firm on her face, Galeta released the hold she’d had on June’s tunic and patted the snail shell warmly. “You must trust me, dear.”

  “They did things, strange things, in the Cave of Songs.”

  Nostrils flaring, heart thumping wildly in her chest, Galeta could only imagine the strange things they’d done in the cave. For years The Blue had searched for a way to punish Calanthe, now she had it. And there wasn’t a fairy alive that could stop her.

  “You’ve done good, June, you’ve done very good.”

  The wee fairy made as if to leave, but Galeta shook her head. “Oh no, my dear, where do you think you’re going?”

  Looking as if she’d been caught mid-theft, June jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ve told you everything, ma’am, I was going to head back now.”

  “Ah, but you see I am not done with you yet. This is a serious crime that has been committed, not only did Calanthe steal from me, but if what you say is true then she has committed the cardinal sin. I do believe there is one who will want to hear this… crime.”

  “Who, ma’am?”