~~

Trinity

~~

My anger was boiling. My heart was pounding. Those angry words were reverberating inside of my ears. Not to mention I could sense the rage coming off of Reece and all of the guards that were standing around us.

I could even sense a small amount of anger coming from the Queen of the Fae as she stared down as her disloyal subject. The level of emotions she was emitting was astronomical compared to what I was getting from her earlier. This was a completely different queen that was sitting next to me. Her entire aura, her very essence felt completely different. This was bad.

I wanted to turn to look at Queen Gloriana. I desperately wanted to see the look on her face. I wanted to see if her eyes were glowing. Perhaps there was a small personal windstorm that was kicking up her hair and blowing it back so that she looked like she was a badass while she gathered her power.

I didn't look though. To turn my head and look at her would have diminished my regal appearance. I was working hard not to show how much that man's words had bothered me. I didn't want him or the others to know how angered I was by what he had said. Hell I was beyond angry, I was righteously fucking pissed off.

Just as the tension in the room reached a fever pitch, just as the silence grew too intense to bear, Queen Gloriana finally spoke.

"Grier, you seem to have some very big issues with me. Is there something that has brought this on?" She was speaking calmly, a lot more calmly than I would have been capable of if I was in her position.

"What brought this on?" Grier scoffed at her. "Yes there was something that brought this on. You are ruining our people. First you let your nephew impregnate a wolf almost twenty years ago. Then you let your niece mate with a wolf. Now you invite the Queen of the wolves here to be our allies and act like we're all the best of friends. Can you not see that they're trying to take over the world? Can you not tell that they are nothing but trouble. They want to take our power from us. They want to take your position as the Queen of the Fae and rule over us as well. I will not stand for this."

Grier was both well informed and dreadfully undereducated about what was going on. How could he think that I wanted something like that? What could possibly make him think that I wanted to rule over the fae? That was simply ridiculous.

"Grier, dear sweet Grier, I am sorry to tell you this but you are so far from the truth that there is no finding your way back." Queen Gloriana didn't sound condescending. Her words weren't the nicest but they weren't the worst. And yet I could still feel the derision that she was throwing toward him. That was a skill I needed to master.

"Do not mock me, Queen Gloriana. For it is we the people of this Kingdom that hold your fate in our hands." The threat was clear in his words. He was telling her to shut up or die. I sincerely wished that the man would smarten up and shut his mouth already. I didn't want to get blood on my dress.

I did finally look at Queen Gloriana at that point. There was just too much going on for me not to follow the shouting between them like I was at a tennis match. The ball was now in Gloriana's court and it was up to her to figure out what she was going to do next.

The moment I saw Queen Gloriana's face though, I wished I hadn't. There was an icy chill coming off of her that I had been oblivious to until I finally looked at her face. The anger that was rolling off of her was actually sucking the oxygen from the air around her. I felt it intensely now, since I was sitting so close to her.

I noticed that the Queen's consort who was sitting on her other side was leaning as far from her as he possibly could. I wished I knew his name then, since it looked like he was about to die from fright. Sorry unnamed consort, I hope you can hold out a little while longer.

"Grier, you know you have gone too far. I had hoped you would prove somehow that this was beyond your control. I had hoped that something or someone would have forced this upon you. You used to be such a wonderful boy."

"Stop talking to me like I am a child, you old hag." Grier was screaming now. "I am almost two hundred years old, I am not a child anymore."

"The way you are behaving reeks of childishness." I snapped at the man. "Throwing a temper tantrum like you are. Behaving like your friends are your enemies just because someone new came into the picture. That is the very definition of childish behavior if you want my opinion on the matter."

"No one asked you, wolf bitch." Grier's voice was filled with a palpable rage that was so strong I could literally feel it pressing against my skin. It didn't hurt. It didn't even annoy me. In all honesty it felt like nothing more than a gentle massage along my skin.

"Watch your mouth if you don't want it taken from you." Reece stood then, his anger much stronger than that of the insolent man who was throwing his tantrum. "If you speak to my mate like that again you will lose more than your ability to talk."

"Are you threatening me?" Grier looked like he was justified now. "You see what I mean. They are nothing but violent animals. They are here to kill us all."

"The only one who is behaving violently is you, Grier. My mate is the Alpha King, it is his job to protect me. You are being disrespectful and volatile. There is nothing acceptable about the way you are conducting yourself at the moment." I was doing my best to keep my composure but it was so damn hard.

"I will show you volatile, you half breed mongrel."

Grier took one step, moving just that little bit closer toward the dais. That was all it took for me to ready my magic and prepare to restrain him. It had been unnecessary though. Before I could do anything at all the Queen's magic exploded next to me.

With a rush of wind so powerful that it nearly ripped the shawl from my shoulder Queen Gloriana's magic rushed toward Grier. One second he was on his feet and stepping closer to us and the next second he was suspended in the air.

There were five bands of light holding the man in place. They weren't friendly looking bands either. The light was a green so dark that it looked like there was black swirling in its shining depths.

The bands were wrapped around Grier at every normal place you would think of. One wrapped around each wrist, one wrapped around each ankle, and one wrapped tightly around his neck.

Queen Gloriana was on her feet now. The magic she was exuding was raising her off of the dais and was moving closer to the man that was suspended in the air. And her hair was indeed blowing around her like I imagined it would have been earlier. Only, it was blowing a lot harder than I expected.

"I tried to warn you off calmly, Grier. I tried to let you save face and receive a lesser punishment than what you are going to receive right now. I really didn't want to do this in front of our guests but you have left me no choice. You have repeatedly threatened not only me but our guests as well. They are here at my invitation. They are not usurpers, they are not intruders or invaders. They are honored guests." Queen Gloriana sighed then like the next part of her speech was going to be very difficult. "I truly wish you would have listened to your wife. You should never have come out here. You should have given this all up before you even got started. Now I have no choice but to punish you as a traitor to the crown."

"This will only strengthen my point. You are going to steel the resolve of those that agree with me. You are just making me a martyr."

"I sincerely hope that no one is as stupid as you are Grier. And I hope that you serve as a lesson to those that wish to follow in your footsteps."

"No, I will not be a lesson, I will be a hero. I will be known as the man who started the revolution. I will be-." That was the last of what Grier had to say.

Well, to be fair he probably had more to say, but he didn't have the time to say it before it was too late.

Queen Gloriana placed one hand on the man's chest where he floated in front of her. In an instant his entire body seemed to explode with large thick vines. They poured out of every part of his body that they could. Vines came from his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. There were vines coming from where his eyes had been, the eye balls themselves skewered on the tips of them. There were even vines coming from his rectum. Not to mention he seemed to be coming apart at the seams with the vast amount of vines that were filling his insides. It was all very graphic and very disgusting.

I would have been splattered with the blood that flew from the man when he died if it hadn't been for the shields that I threw up at the last second. The blood and other fluids just collided with the invisible wall in front of those of us that were still at the table.

I wanted to show that I was still composed and not at all bothered by the scene, even though it scared the shit out of me. Still, I needed to act like this was nothing so that the Fae would not lose respect for me. So, to show that I was unaffected, I just picked up my goblet from the table, took a sip, and turned toward Reece.

"That was very exciting, don't you think so?" The shock that flitted across Reece's face told me that he hadn't expected me to seem so calm.

I guess that means I succeeded.