“I’d like to call our next witness to the stand,” said Eva. “King Darcy of the Vampires.”
I must have been in a trance throughout the sentencing of the Fae woman. I blinked and sat up straighter in my seat as Darcy made his way to the witness stand to testify against the wolf shifter who had attacked innocent humans.
“Your Majesty, do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” asked Eva.
“I swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, in accordance with the laws of the supernatural realm.”
The court process and laws worked a little differently here compared to the human realm. I liked it. It was more straightforward. I found the whole process easier to understand, too.
There were no attorneys. There were no bailiffs. The president did all the questioning and the sentencing. And after each accused was questioned, they were handed their sentence straight away. There was no reconvening to another day just to hear the sentencing. No rigmarole. The human justice system could learn a thing or two from the supernatural one.
“Your Majesty,” Eva began.
“Darcy, please,” said Darcy as he nodded his head toward her. I smirked. He may be old fashioned sometimes, but he was never one for sticking to tradition. He was a rebel like me.
“Sorry. Darcy. We have already heard both sides of the story about what this man did.” She gestured toward the shifter seated before her. “I just want you to answer me one thing: do you believe this man, James, was coerced into attacking the humans?”
Darcy nodded. “Yes. I do.”
“Do you believe James wanted to harm the humans?”
“No. I believe he is genuinely remorseful for his actions and was acting out of fear of being killed.”
Eva nodded. “And who do you believe coerced James into attacking the humans and forced him to shift into someone else?”
Darcy turned his attention to my father, who was chained and seated separately from the other accused. “King Edward of the Dragon Realm.”
“Thank you, Darcy. You may go back to your seat.” As Darcy left the witness stand and made his way back to his seat, he winked at me. My cheeks heated, and I smiled at him. Maybe he didn’t hate me after all. Eva then turned her attention to James, the shifter who could become any species.
“James, I hereby sentence you to one year of good behavior in the supernatural realm. You are not to venture into the human realm within that time. You must not harm another creature, human or supernatural within that time, either. I know most of your actions were not your own, but it is my duty as leader of this realm to protect my people and the humans.”
“Oh, thank you! Thank you, President Eva.” James began groveling again, which made Eva smile and gesture to her guards to lead James out of the courthouse.
“I’d like to call the next witness to the stand. Princess Emmaline of the Dragon Realm.”
I froze. I must have spaced out again because a warm hand on mine made me jump. I looked up and was met with Ash’s kind face. He smiled reassuringly.
“Are you okay, Emma?” he asked.
“Oh. Yes. Thanks.”
I got to my feet and slowly and robotically made my way to the witness stand, knowing what was coming.
I was about to testify against my father. Nervousness took over my body, and I began to sweat and shake. Darcy must have sensed my feelings because he sped to my side.
“Emma? Are you okay?” I nodded. I couldn’t speak. Even though I knew this day would come, and I knew I wanted revenge for all the pain and torment my father had caused over the years, I still felt ill. I wanted it all to end now. I wanted to get out of here. I felt Darcy’s hand on my lower back.
“I’m right here,” he whispered before kissing my cheek. He waited at the base of the dais. I looked back at him and climbed the few stairs to the witness stand. “You’ve got this.” He made his way back to his seat and left me alone. This was it. I took a deep breath and looked out over the crowded courtroom.
Since my father was the last to be tried and sentenced, and the other accused had left, he was moved to the seat directly in front of Eva and closer to me. I locked eyes with him, reminding myself why I was doing this. He met my gaze and looked down after two seconds. Coward. He knew he was done.
“Emmaline, do you swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth in accordance with the laws of this realm?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. I promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth in accordance with the laws of the supernatural realm.”
Eva nodded. “Will you tell the court your story? Why you are testifying against this man, King Edward of the Dragon Realm, your father.”
I glanced over at Darcy one more time, and he nodded, giving me the reassurance I needed to continue. I cleared my throat again and told my story.
“When I was a young girl, I thought to live in a castle and being a princess was wonderful. I would run through the castle on my pretend dragon. I used to pretend I was a Keeper, a protector of dragons, even though I have dragon blood. But I wasn’t allowed outside the castle walls. My father forbade that. So I grew up never seeing the village in person and experiencing the ambiance and all it had to offer. I wasn’t allowed to venture into the surrounding forests to pick wildflowers or talk to the other creatures who lived there. I had to listen to stories told by the young kitchenhands. I was punished if I snuck a cookie from the kitchen or refused to take my lessons, or even if I refused to wear a dress. I hated dresses. I would sometimes borrow clothes from the stable boy. Pants were far easier to play in. But it made my father furious.
“Over the years, I witnessed a slow decline in my mother’s health. She was born a witch, and her magic grew weaker each day. It wasn’t until my fifteenth birthday that I realized my father was draining her of her magic. Some nights, I watched through a crack in the door to my parent’s bedroom as my mother healed my father of his everyday aches and pains. They were pains typical of growing older, sore joints and sore back. When she would say she was tired, he would yell at her to start over. And she would until she was physically drained of magic.
“On the night of my fifteenth birthday, I had been reading a history book about the vampires when I heard someone crying. I crept down the hall to my parent’s room and found my mother crying beside the window. The moonlight streamed across her pale features, and I caught sight of a nasty bruise on her right eye socket. That was when I realized my father had been hitting my mother as well as forcing her to drain her magic every day so she would be weaker than he was.
“My father stormed into the room, and I confronted him. I threw all the magic I had at him in rage. He hadn’t known about my powers, of course. My mother had told me to keep them hidden. We had been practicing in secret over the past year, and I was strong. When I threw my magic at him, he was so mad he pulled out his longsword and tried to kill me. He called me an abomination.”
A sob escaped my mouth, and I paused. Tears rolled down my face. Ash handed me a handkerchief.
“Thank you,” I choked out. He nodded and returned to his seat. After I wiped my face and cleared my eyes of tears, I continued.
“That was the night I fled the castle and never returned. Until now. My father told me if I didn’t leave, he would kill my mother and me. I wanted to stay for my mother to protect her, but she told me to run. I wanted to take her with me. But she begged me to flee and save myself.” I turned to Darcy and smiled.
“As I had been reading about the Vampire Realm and its King, that’s where I ran. I didn’t know where else to go. As a teenager raised in isolation behind castle walls and forbidden to leave, I was incredibly naïve about the world. That was the night I met Darcy. And the rest, they say, is history.” Darcy winked.
“Tell us about the recent events, the events which caused King Edward to coerce three supernatural creatures to commit crimes against the treaty and the laws of this realm,” said Eva.
“Well, it all started when my father appeared in Darcy’s nightclub. It has been three years since I fled the castle, and I hadn’t seen him since. All the old feelings I had toward him returned. We fought. He pulled out his longsword and went to kill me, but I threw up a protective barrier around Darcy and myself. My father got mad and made my mother place a spell on me.”
“Tell us about the spell.”
“He told me the spell was a curse of mortality. That it would take away my immortality and turn me human. But what he didn’t know was that my mother had secretly played him. She placed a temporary spell on me to turn off my powers to make it appear I was human to him.” I turned to look at my father as my chair was facing sideways toward Eva. He was visibly shaking with rage. So I pushed the dagger in further and rubbed salt in the wound.
“Yeah, that’s right. We have been playing the player for years,” I told him. “Mum and I practiced our magic together in secret for years so that one day we would both be strong enough to take you down. I would have done it back there at the ball, but I didn’t want to frighten my people. Besides, I am not that kind of Queen.” I looked up to Eva, and she nodded for me to continue.
“Eva and I had a little talk before this. We agreed that things needed to change around here. Starting with the trans-realm treaty. But more on that later. Let’s talk about your punishment. We both agreed that the sentencing should be left up to me. And personally, I cannot wait for the pleasure of watching you suffer for once.” I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest smugly. All the blood drained from my father’s face. Good. He was afraid.
Then Eva said, “I sentence the accused, the former King of the Dragon Realm, to death by beheading. Take the accused out into the town square!”
As the guards hauled my father out of the courtroom, and everyone followed, I pushed through the crowd and found Darcy. I placed my hands upon his chest and gazed into his eyes.
“Am I doing the right thing?” I asked.
He placed a kiss on my forehead and then looked down at me. “I’m sorry about before. I stand beside you with whatever choice you make. You were right. Your story, it made me realize he needs to pay for what he did. It needs to be more than prison. I’m sorry you were subjected to that.”
I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. “I love you,” I mumbled into his chest. “And don’t be sorry for what he did. I’m stronger for it. I am who I am because of him.”
“I love you too, Emma. Let’s get this over and done with. I’d love to go home and snuggle in bed with my favorite witch slash dragon and possibly make love to her.” He added a wink.
I flinched and pulled back a little so I could look at him. “But where is home?”
He took my face in his cold, delicate hands and stroked my cheeks with his thumbs, tracing gentle circles over my earlobes. The sensation was heavenly. I almost moaned.
“Home is wherever you are for me,” he whispered, and then he kissed me.
And I was satisfied with that.