© ItalRT4u, 2012

     As I had, weeks ago, there I stood in that wooded clearing, awaiting potential chaos to ensue.  The memories of our interrogation fresh in my mind; the feel of Cane’s pride drenching me to the bone, filling me with overwhelming will to see this through to its very end.

     I had tried everything and the woman refused to break.  She had shared a few choice words with us but never broke under our scrutiny.  Tapping into my abilities, I knew that there was indeed something far greater than we expected at play but it didn’t feel like it warranted our immediate attention.  Refusing to back down, I was adamant to break this woman.  Unbeknownst to her, I had my own ammunition against her.  If physical aggression wasn’t the key to breaking her, I wonder if an emotional angle would.

     Angus walked in, a battered and bruised Elizabeth in his vices, forcefully towing her along behind him as he moved forward.  Upon his failing to break Elizabeth and hearing that Gage and Lana were in the United States, he had immediately jumped on his jet and made his way to us.  Lana’s eyes bulged out of their sockets, proverbially speaking of course, when she saw the witch manhandled by her ex-husband.

     “Angus.”  Her voice sounded low, dry, and fear hung in the air surrounding her.

     “Lana.”  He eyed her, a look of resentment present.  “What have you done?”  And from zero to sixty, her fear was replaced by mute emotion and a wicked cackling as she tilted her head back laughing crazily.  It was now clear to me that this woman feared nothing.

     “You never got it back then and I guess you never will.”  She finally said humour lacing her gaze.  “When will you realize that your son was the one that should have been in ‘his’ place.”  She nodded toward Cane.

     “You’re delusional!”  Angus expressed.  “You know as well as I do; as well as everyone that no one can control the Fates.”  His voice had grown boisterous to the verge of shouting.

     “Gage was supposed to reign.  The witch said so herself!”  She protested.

     “The witch.”  He paused to look at Elizabeth with disdain and pointed at her.  “Her mother chose to play with your desires upon my request after I saw you for who you really are.  Not once did I think that Bell’s offspring would be so deceitful.  Frankly, when Bell told me what she told you, my suspicions of how conniving, how corrupt you really are were confirmed.  You preyed on a weak witch and a multitude of others, including our own son to do your bidding therefore condemning them all and yourself.”

     “He’s my match!”  Elizabeth shouted at him.  “What else could I have done?”  My head snapped in her direction – it explained as to why she had turned against the likes of Angus MacDougall.

     “You could have come to me!”  Angus now shouted his frustration, his anger, his resentment all present and more than palpable by all in the room.

     After another hour or so of argumentative banter that edged toward being entirely out of control, I took over this entire disaster of an inquisition.  Through my commanding abilities, we had discovered that Lana had been the leader to the ploy to Gage ascending to the throne.  I was unsure what she stood to gain out of this but, eventually, with my death, Elizabeth and he would have been able to rule accordingly.  What Lana had neglected to foresee was that every little work minion of hers would fail at their respective miserable tasks – blinded with their personal obsessions with power – they had all played at each other’s ambitions and faltered.  I found myself thinking of famous words by a certain Lord Acton – Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Truer words were never spoken in their case.  More than ever now, I knew that there was no way in hell that I would allow these two less than lovely ladies sitting, bound in front of me, to roam free to walk this earth again.  Not of their own accord.  Question is how the hell am I to do this without having harm come to Sahara?  In this moment, I knew our plan had changed…

     “You can do this, Love.”  I hear Cane enter my head.  Those five words made me straighten my stance, my head holding high as I heard the evident rustling of leaves and cracking of twigs in the distance off to my left.  I turned toward the sound.

     Sahara made an appearance first; closely followed with Gage wielding a blade in his free hand.  It’s not so true when they say that it pays to plan ahead.  Eyeing the man I once thought I would have been happy with; the same who incidentally broke my heart; the one that also collaborated to see me and my match dead, I couldn’t help but notice the proof that he was strictly a puppet in his mother’s scheming.  He stood there, anxiety seething through, an aura of ill preparedness surrounding him – he was nervous.  I couldn’t help the sly smirk that made its way onto my lips. 

     I’ve got this.

     “Bring them forward.”  I told Cane through our link.  As if entirely possible, within the next few minutes, the air grew colder.

     “Father.”  Gage looked at Angus who held his mother’s bound arms behind her back.  He remained silent refusing to acknowledge his own kin – his blood.

     “I thought I told you to kill her.”  Lana snickered at her son, regarding Sahara.  “You’re useless!”  She declared exasperatedly.  Gage flushed crimson with anger; he clearly didn’t appreciate being spoken to in such a demeaning fashion.  The next few minutes were taken hostage by mother and son exchanging words of fault and accusation; thus dragging on this whole exchange of sorts.  I know I said there was no way I intended on letting any of them go but trust me when I say I meant those words at the time – and I stand by them even now.

     “I did everything for you, you ungrateful spawn!”  She hollered over the wind that had begun to howl around us.  “You couldn’t do anything right.  If it weren’t for me, Matt would have been rid of you after you first approached him.  It’s a good thing I knew how his head worked.  When I opened for him, he was more than willing to comply.”  She chuckled at her revelation.  I turned to face her and noticed Angus on the verge of an explosion of monstrous proportions.  He was shaking with rage at her words and I couldn’t blame him.  If I were to know my match was with someone else after being matched, I think I would put in every effort to rip him limb from limb despite the separation.  After all, it wasn’t for lack of love for his match that led to their demise – well, not on his part anyway because I refuse to believe that this woman was ever capable of loving anyone but herself and her lust for dominance.

     “Enough!!”  My voice bellowed above all others; words freezing mid-pronunciation with my single-worded command.  “This is how it’s going to be.”  I continued; my words stern.  I noticed everyone had whimpered but Gage who had only slightly flinched.  William had done a bit of research before our departure and there seems to be a concoction out there that rendered people slightly immune to the Royal power of command – this explained a lot and to be frank, I’m not entirely surprised that Gage had taken measures to protect himself in that way.  It didn’t bar him from falling victim to my other abilities however.

     I let Angus and Cane escort Elizabeth and Lana towards Gage as he released Sahara, allowing her to make a run for my arms.  Just as his match ran into his arms, his mother huffing as a retort to their ridiculous displays of affection, the rustling through the thicket of trees and bushes was heard and William’s men worked in perfect synch at surrounding the three of them.  With nowhere to go, Gage looked at me in a panic and I couldn’t help the smug grin that took over my face.  This moment was by far one of the most satisfying ones of my entire reign thus far.  I know, it’s not saying much since I’ve been a Royal for like five minutes at this point but being able to actively participate in justice being served and not simply doing the sentencing was exhilarating.  The feel of being judge, jury and executioner held its own appeal at the moment and I revelled in it; especially with the lack of bloodshed from my very own hands this time around.  I shivered at the memory of the last time I stood on this land.

     “Gage.  Lana.  Elizabeth.”  The leader of William’s group of captors began.  “You have been tried.  You have been measured.  And you have been found wanting.  What say you?”  Cane came to stand by my side, an arm wrapped around my waist as I still held on to Sahara watching this scene unfold before us, up close and personal.  None of the three responded.  Silence remaining, they were shackled and escorted back from where our vehicles were lined up to the side of the nearby gravel side-road.

     “Gage?”  I paused, waiting for him to be turned around to face me before they stuck him in the vehicle.  “And this goes for you other two.”  I added, them being turned around to face me as well; looks of defeat displayed on every one of their faces.  “I hope the three of you live long enough to witness the flesh rot off of your bones but if I’m correct, I doubt that’s what will happen.”  I said with bitterness and condemnation lacing my every word.

     Carted off, this would be the last time I would set eyes on Gage and those two women that helped orchestrate the most outrageous of take-overs known to Fae-kind.

     “Are you alright?”  I asked Sahara again, backing away so I could inspect her from head to toe.  She seemed perfectly unharmed other than the slight reddish rope burns on her wrists and the bruise on her cheek which I was presuming was from that hit I had overheard on the phone.

     “What’s going on?”  She asked me curiously.

     “Come on.”  I tell her, grabbing Cane’s extended hand and she followed, reaching for my free hand.  I chose to remain silent; telling myself that there would be enough time to tell her all about it later when we’ve gotten back to the mansion and allowed ourselves to settle down from the excitement of putting an end to Gage’s antics.

     The ride back to the Nottingham’s was one with the most indistinct of silences.  I scrambled my brain with ways to break the news about the Fae world to Sahara.  To my knowledge, humans don’t normally know about our world unless they are involved with someone of our world as Sandra had told me that day, in the garden, after we had first been re-introduced.  I decided to take some time and confer with William, Angus and Cane and see what their thoughts on the matter at hand stood.  Sandra was looking after a slumbering Sahara who had fallen asleep in the car ride back to the mansion.

     Assuring both William and Angus that our secret was safe with Sahara, I confirmed that I wouldn’t tell her everything about our world, just enough to appease her suspicions of what was going on and to quench her urge to question.  After all, there were humans out there that were with Fae-kind and have been educated on our world.  If humans were to be kept in the dark all this time explicitly, it would have been forbidden for Fae and humans to mate.

     As Cane and I walked into the living room, Sahara was awake, sipping on a glass of water.

     “Mr. Bright Eyes?”  She questioned.  Evidently, her shock at the wooded clearing had prevented her from putting two and two together earlier.  I looked at Cane who was now chuckling.  “You two?”  She took her index finger, pointing in our direction and waved it back and forth gesturing to both of us intermittently.  I nodded in confirmation as Cane hugged me from behind.  “It explains a lot.”  She paused and took another large gulp of her water before putting the glass down on the coffee table before her.  “What it doesn’t explain however,” pausing for her usual dramatic effect; “is how you’ve forgotten to pick up a phone to let your best friend – No!  Scratch that…  Your worried best friend, know what was going on and that you were alright.”  She crossed her arms at her chest.  Tapping her foot as she hinted she was waiting impatiently for a reply, Cane wrapped his arms tighter around me from behind, leaning his chin on my shoulder, and I felt the rumbling in his chest as he tried to stifle another laugh.

     “Well?  I’m waiting!”  She exploded exasperatedly.  She wasn’t really mad but she definitely knew how to make one feel bad – clearly it wasn’t working on Cane seeing as he was now full out laughing, his face pressed into the side of my neck to muffle the sound.

     “I had to leave and I couldn’t let anyone know.”  I told her.

     “Why?”

     “Sit down.  We’ll be a while.”  I told her.

     Sahara digested things like I thought she would – well.  I told her the bare minimum about our kind.  I told her about how Gage, Elizabeth and Lana had orchestrated a coup to take me and Cane out.  I told her that things had gotten so dangerous that, that was why I left town and never looked back.  She finally understood why I hadn’t been able to call her or the twins – especially the twins.  They were the goddamn gossip queens of Chatham Falls.  If they knew something, the whole town knew it moments later – the joys of small towns!  She had nearly lost her cool when I told her that my parents weren’t in fact biologically mine.  Finally, I told her about the various times Cane had been there for me, how oddly enough, we were old family friends, and that after saving my ass more times than I can remember, we fell for one another.  I left the bit about our instant connection out but as intuitive as she’s always been, I think she was seeing through that little bit of information I had given her.

     “What’s up with your eyes?”  She finally asked.

     “This is where it gets weird.”  I warned her.  She looked at me quizzically but patiently waited for me to elaborate on my statement.

     My dearest best friend sat there after absorbing all the info Cane and I were willing to provide, communicating through our link on what we’d agree and disagree to divulge.  By the time we were done, her mouth was opening and closing as if she was a fish out of water.  No words were coming out.  If all of this had happened without the chaos that had occurred in Chatham Falls, she might have thought differently of the whole situation – there’s no doubt in my mind she would have flown off the handle with our revelations.

     “I believe you.”  She said finally after finding her words.  “Now,” she stood up and eyed me precariously.  “I want details woman!”  And I knew she meant she wanted to know about Cane and I.

     “That’s my cue.”  Cane chuckled and kissed me quickly before leaving us two ladies to be.

     “I’m glad you haven’t changed.”  I hugged her quickly.

                                          *************************************

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