Page 58 of Lightning Strikes

Chapter 21

Cal

_________

I’m fucked.

The last time I was on Earth, I went to search for answers. My contact told me that more shifters are going missing and there was strange activity happening in Prescott, Arizona.

So I’m there for weeks, researching. Using the small amount of magic that I can while in a magic-less realm… And eventually run into Angela. Beautiful, Angela.

She’s a shifter, only a shifter. I didn’t worry about knocking her up, just as I never do with any of the low fae I’ve met over the years of my travels… in either realm. As long as I don’t copulate with another high fae, I never have to worry.

Unless that shifter apparently has a healer gene and I apparently did, in fact, knock her up.

I was only permitted to be in the Earth realm for a month, and barely got anything done. There were murmurs and sightings of ‘wolves’ from the humans, but nothing seemed to be amiss. I met Angela, saved a puppy, had the best sex of my life, and then used the last bit of my power to send my car to the port in England where I keep all of my Earthly belongings, and opened a portal to Faerie. I spent my days in meetings. Arguing with my mother and father, hiding from my siblings… And spending my time glamouring myself around the realm and drinking my heart’s content.

Who knows when I would be next to head through the portal to help out on Earth again? It could have been months, years, decades, another century. Opening a portal, even for one person puts our realm at risk… I shouldn’t have gone back before the wards were checked…

I’m the heir to the throne, and my younger siblings have been kissing our parent’s feet to try get that changed. I don’t want the throne. It’s never felt like mine.

I want to travel, mate who I want, and open the portals to Earth and save our brethren. We’re not allowed to interfere. Just speculate and bring the information back to the palace.

Ever since the prophecy was introduced to the realms, we’ve been opening portals very carefully, and searching for this female, keeping our ears to the ground at least. ‘She will be born when all hope is lost, Heal us all, Save us, and Secure the realms.’Or at least that’s what my parents tell me.

Sure. That’s fucking helpful. How do we know she’s not already dead? Disappeared? Or protected somewhere we can’t reach? The damn angels probably took her.

I have contacts all over the Earth realm that use special technology to send me messages no matter where I am… So color me surprised when I received a message that an alpha in New York was requesting information on Angela… And color me even more shocked when there waszeroinformation on her.

Nothing. At. All. No name, date of birth, anything about her parents.

I didn’t think to research her when I was in Prescott, there wasn’t a reason to. She was a warm hole to sink into, didn’t fall over herself to get closer to me or my money, and actually held a conversation with me. She’s a successful woman, seemed happy with her life. I never expected to see her again…

But now… here we are. I snuck back into the Earth realm and have been watching her on and off for the past couple of weeks. I noticed she was pregnant and assumed that was why she moved to New York. Going from a veterinarian to a ‘pack healer’, I was interested in how she was doing.

Nothing seemed off or different about her. She became close to her guards, started to fall more in love with that Mac character… and I was getting ready to leave when I heard a commotion in the restroom of the restaurant she and two of her guards were eating at.

When I saw the female enter the restroom with a sneer on her face and a needle in her hand, I snapped. By the time I reached them, Angela was already bagged and drugged, and the female was stepping out of the room. I was too late, but didn’t think as I grabbed Angela, opened a portal, and left. Straight to Fern.

I should have stayed. Explained myself. Helped her and just walked away. Because now? I’m fucked. There’s no way my parents will let her live after the baby is born. They’re going to think she tricked me. Drugged me. Used some sort of magic to bypass our DNA to knock her up.

It’s impossible for a high fae to mate with a lower fae. It just doesn’t work. Like trying to mate with humans – it cannot be done.

We’re a vast race, but the royals and nobles have always been high fae ‘fairies’. We have wings, magic, glamour, and can shift into other animals, not just wolves like the low fae shifters.

Low fae are also known as the mages, vampires, and shifters. Low fae don’t have the magic that we do to survive and keep the realms from imploding. We control the magic of Faerie, and it takes a lot of us ever since the true queen went missing centuries ago.

I frown as I look in the mirror to find Fern and Angela talking amongst themselves and he’s pointing the palace out to her. He knows where her new destiny lies. She will be kept under lock and key until she delivers the baby, then she will be questioned, and most likely killed for treachery and trickery against the crown.

She has broken so many laws that my head is spinning.

How did she even know who I was? I’ve always been so damn careful on the Earth realm. It’s impossible to see through my glamours.

We pull up to the gates and the guards wave us in. My mother and father are already at the door, waiting for their new prisoner. We have guards posted all over the grounds and inside the palace, just in case she tries anything else. I wouldn’t put it past her… She does a great fucking job pretending to be innocent.

We park at the bottom of the stone steps and I wait for a guard to open my door. I nod to him as I fix my jacket and don’t look back as I climb the steps, standing on the other side of my mother, waiting for Fern and the guards to escort her to her new accommodations.

She smiles softly as Fern helps her out, wrapping her small, soft hand around his arm. I roll my eyes once again as I focus on how he matched their outfits. He’s an eccentric male but has always been a close friend for as long as I can remember.

---