Winter Princess: Episode 1 (Reverse Harem Serial) (Daughter of Winter) Read online

  “After you levelled the street?” Frost laughs.

  “Not funny,” Storm grumbles. “Arc had to spend two hours changing your neighbours’ memories.”

  “Wow, you can do that?” I stare at the ginger Scot. He shrugs uncomfortably. “Aye, I guess.”

  “Are my parents alright?”

  “Yes, your mother had a slight graze on her arm, but I healed it, so don’t worry,” Crispin says from behind me.

  “You can heal?”

  “How do you think you’re up and walking?” Storm says impatiently. “Can we have this conversation somewhere that isn’t among humans?” He says it like being human is an insult. That reminds me, I don’t even know what they are. My mother told me her guards would come and collect them, and I know that one can heal, one can change memories and one can manipulate the air’s temperature. I’ve not seen Frost do anything magical, but I’m sure he has some kind of amazing magic, just like the others. I can’t wait to find out if I can do some of what they can. I’d love to be able to heal.

  Before I can ask any more questions, Storm leads us away from the busy streets until we come to a small rental car place. While he goes inside, the other guys are looking at the cars on display, their eyes wide and mouths salivating. Well, maybe not the latter. Men. Give them something shiny to look at and they forget all about the woman in their company.

  “Where are we going?” I ask them but don’t get a reply. They’re too busy examining cars. Tsss, apparently it doesn’t matter that they’re not human, they’re just as easily distracted by a few PS. Ok, that Ferrari looks quite nice, but as long as it gets me where I want it to, I don’t really care what car I drive.

  Storm comes out, waving a set of keys. I thought he’d rent some kind of sports car, something sleek and expensive, but we stop in front of a large seven-seat people carrier.

  “Seriously?” Arc asks him. Frost is bent over laughing.

  “It was on offer,” Storm grumbles.

  “We’ve got access to the royal bank accounts. You’d think we could afford to rent something more… like a car.”

  “Maybe if you lost some weight we would all fit into a nice car,” Storm smirks.

  “Oi, it’s all muscle!” Arc flexes his biceps and then lifts his kilt to give me a view of his thick leg muscles. Thanks, didn’t need to see that. He’s probably traditionalist enough to not wear anything beneath the kilt.

  “Let’s get going, we’ve got quite a long way ahead of us.” Storm shoos us into the car, taking the driver’s seat for himself. Frost joins his brother in the front, while Arc claims the back bench. I join Crispin on the seats in the middle.

  “Where are we going?” I ask as we drive out of the rental place and along Edinburgh’s busy streets.

  “Calanais on the Isle of Lewis.”

  “The Western Isles? That’s in the middle of nowhere. Why there?”

  “The standing stones are the closest portal to the God Realms.”

  “So we’re going to step through the stones like in Outlander?”

  Four clueless men look at me. Guess that book hasn’t made it into the Realm’s libraries yet (do they have libraries there? Or computers? Will my Kindle work?) Actually…

  “I need to go home first, pack my stuff.”

  Crispin cringes slightly. “How much do you remember of last night?”

  “Nothing really after the …ehm… earthquake.”

  Arc roars from behind me. “She’s calling it an earthquake. That’s so cute!”

  “Shut it, Scottie,” Crispin shouts over the laughter. “Wynter, there’s not much left of your house. Your parents are staying at a hotel for now until they can be recompensed. They were both rather upset, so we decided- “

  “You decided!” Frost interrupts.

  “Yes, I decided to put them out of their misery- “

  “You killed my parents?!” I shriek, launching myself at Crispin.

  “What? No, I put them in a coma- “

  I growl, trying to rip Crispin’s head off his shoulders. Let him try to heal that, asshole. He’s gripping my wrists, trying to keep my clawing hands away from his face while I fight against the seatbelt stopping my legs from kicking him.

  “Stop it, Wyn,” Storm’s deep voice booms through the car, “what he’s trying to say is that they’re sleeping for a day or two to recover from the shock of seeing their daughter burn down their house.”

  That hurts. I sink back, leaving Crispin to lick his wounds (a few scratches on his face, nothing major).

  “Are they… mad at me?” I ask in a small voice.

  “They’ll be ok, lassie,” Arc says from behind me and puts a large hand on my shoulder. “You cannae forget, they’re human, so it was all a wee bit too much for them.”

  “So it’s all gone? The house?”

  “Pretty much, aye. Some things may be salvageable from the ground floor. And the shed is intact, ‘s far as I could see.”

  “Thank the Gods,” I sigh. “Mum would have been furious as hell if her paintings got destroyed.”

  “There is no hell,” Frost remarks. I see what he is doing and follow the change of topic.

  “Then where do bad people go after death?”

  “The really bad ones are usually snatched up by demons just before they die, and are taken to the Demon Realms as servants. The ones that die are judged and then sent back to Earth.”

  “Why would they…? Seriously? Reincarnation?”

  “Yes, guess you could call it that.”

  “So I could be reborn as an ant?”

  “No, you’re not bad and you only get reborn as a human so you can make amends.”

  “Clearly you don’t know me yet,” I snicker. “But who judges us?”

  “That would be telling,” Crispin says, his eyes twinkling.

  “Come on, tell me,” I plead, fluttering my eyelashes.

  “He doesn’t know,” Frost interjects. “None of us do. And it’s not something all that interesting to us anyway.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want to know what happens to you in the afterlife?”

  “Oh, she dinnae ken,” Arc grumbles in his broadest Scottish.

  “Well, then tell me!”

  “We’re immortal, lass.”

  “Oh. So you’re not mages?”

  “Nah, we’re Guardians.”

  “I know you are, Bri- my mother told me she’d send her guards, but what species are you?”

  “We’re Guardians, with a capital G. One of the five races: Humans, Mages, Demons, Gods and Guardians.”

  “So, there’s like a lot of you? A Guardian realm? Little baby Guardians? Do they look as good – I mean, cool. Great. You’re Guardians. Ehm, how does that make you different from mages?”

  “We’re immortal,” Storm sighs. I guess he doesn’t like me asking questions. Which kind of makes me want to ask even more.

  “And no, there aren’t many of us,” his brother elaborates. “We’re created by the Gods to serve and protect them. Hence the name. We live in their realms, and no, there are no baby Guardians. We don’t procreate like humans do-“ he says it with a certain distaste “-we are created when we’re needed.”

  “So, let me get my head around that. You’re not born, you’re never children, you start as adults?”

  “Aye, makes it easier for everyone, no dirty nappies,” Arc jokes. There’s a certain strain in his voice though that makes me turn around to look at him.

  “Then why do you sound Scottish?” The other three guys roar in laughter while Arc’s already rosy face turns bright red.

  “My creator wanted to go back to her roots… She thought she’d enjoy hearing a bit of Scots.” His voice turns bitter. “But it made her melancholic so she sent me to Queen Beira instead.”

  “And I’m glad she did, mate,” Crispin says, now serious. “We would have been lost without you yesterday.”

  We stay quiet for a while. We’ve finally left the city behind and are now driving through
arable farmland. Fields are lining the road, with fat sheep staring at us dispassionately.

  I can still feel yesterday’s exhaustion in my body, and close my eyes sleepily. Just a little nap.

  ***

  I’m swimming in the sea. Jellyfish are circling me, dancing with me, while a group of dolphins are watching. I am part of the sea and the sea is part of me. When I swim, the creatures of the water come to join me. When I need help, they are there. When I am lonely, they give me company. I am the sea’s creation and water is my element. I am born to control the water – it lives through me. I dance a graceful pirouette with one of the dolphins, giggling as her brother shows off with an especially complicated jump –

  “Wyn, snap out of it!”

  “Princess, you have to stop, you’re – damn it, there’s water in the engine, we have to…”

  A slap against my cheek rips me from my dream. Crispin is staring at me, his shock mirroring my own. My feet are ankle-deep in water; the car is flooded. Oops. That wasn’t planned. But then, neither was the earthquake and the attack of the cutlery. My magic is messing with me – it either wants to kill me or it’s laughing in my face.

  Storm is fighting a spluttering engine. Luckily, we are alone on this country road; I don’t think other drivers would take kindly to his swerving.

  “Pull over,” Frost tells his brother. “Wyn, the water is still rising, would you mind making it stop?”

  “Eh, sure.” I concentrate really hard. Then, a moment later, I admit what an idiot I am. “How do I do that?”

  “Are you serious?” Storm shouts. “I’m having trouble believing you’re Queen Beira’s daughter!”

  “Well, she never bothered to come and teach me!” I shout back. A wave breaks over Storm’s head. Oh oh, was that me? Sorry.

  Crispin grips my hand. “You have to feel for your magic. What is it doing right now?”

  I concentrate until I see the swirling magic tendrils around me, forming a thick white web on the bottom of the car. Water is seeping from it. I didn’t know my magic could do that. There’s some serious chemical stuff going on, converting air to water in a split second. I carefully pull back a few of the magic strands, destroying the net. With a tremble, it collapses in on itself and a cloud of steam bursts from within the car-lake. The water is still there, but at least it’s no longer rising. I grin proudly, expecting to see some happy faces, but no such luck. Four stern guys are looking at me.

  “Hey, at least I managed to stop it myself this time,” I mumble, looking down at our wet feet. One of their phones is lying beneath the water’s surface, another victim of my magic.

  We get out of the car and wait while Frost calls the AA. At least it’s nice and sunny, not your usual dreich Scottish weather. The guys are in a surly mood so I sit by myself, trying to make sense of what’s happened in the past two days. It’s crazy, there’s no better word for it. I expected something to happen on my birthday, but not this. I didn’t think I’d have so much power, and so little control.

  I can see the sea in the distance, which means we’ve made it to the West coast, but I have no idea where we actually are.

  “About ten miles from Oban,” Crispin answers when I ask the question. He comes over and sits down on the grass by my side. “I’m sure there’s a repair place there, so it shouldn’t be too long a wait for the tow truck to come.”

  “Do you always drive to Calanais?”

  He laughs. “No, we usually fly. Your mother owns a private plane that we can use. But with your powers being so unstable, we thought it would be a bad idea to be so far from the ground. Fire on a plane is never a good idea.”

  “How long will this magic thing go on for?”

  “I haven’t got a clue. I spent a few days in the Royal Library when we were given this mission, but there’s pretty much no record of other demi-gods. A few human women claimed to have been impregnated by gods, but those children usually turned out to be human.”

  “What about the Greek and Roman demi-gods from the legends? Hercules?”

  He laughs again, and I cross my arms and frown at him. It’s not my fault I know next to nothing about my heritage. “Hercules was a mage who thought a lot of himself. He spent most of his money on scribes to write poems about his supposed strengths. You should ask your mother about him, she met him once.”

  “My mother met Hercules? That’s kind of… weird.” But I guess my mother has been around for long enough to have met all the important people in history. I don’t even know how old she is. But they call her the Mother of Gods, so she must have been around since the beginning. I guess. My RE teacher never mentioned anyone besides the Christian God. I’ll need to ask my mother about that one. “What about Zeus? Didn’t he have other demi-god children?”

  “Zeus is a lower God. He got some good PR in the past, but he’s actually at the bottom of the hierarchy.”

  “So he’s still alive?”

  “Of course, what did you think? He’s a God, they’re immortal.”

  “Just like you Guardians?”

  “Mostly.” I raise an eyebrow until he expands on that statement. “We don’t age and we don’t get sick, but we can be killed. Decapitation is one of our enemies’ favourite. Gods are even harder to kill.”

  “Who are your enemies?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.” I open my mouth to defend myself, but he smiles. “I like it. You only learn by asking questions. Our enemies are the enemies of the Gods. Demons, mostly, but sometimes a power-hungry mage decides to fight the Gods. Unsuccessfully, of course, but it’s good practice for us.” He gives me a grin that changes my perception of him from a healer to a warrior. I can imagine him in a fight (he’s certainly got the muscles for it) and that grin says he’d enjoy it.

  “If there are demons, are there angels as well?”

  “The angels you read about in stories are usually Guardians. Most people don’t know we exist, so when they see us, they give us names from their mythology. Angels, helpful spirits, prophets.”

  I’m almost embarrassed to ask the next question, but it comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. “If people mistake you for angels, do you have wings?”

  “Yes and no.”

  I wait for him to continue, but he just smiles.

  “Come on, tell me!”

  He winks at me and jumps up. “Look, the tow truck is here!”

  Bastard.

  ***

  By the time we arrive in Oban, it’s early afternoon. The mechanic had a look at the car’s engine (he was a little surprised by the water damage) and told us he could have it fixed by tomorrow morning. That got me some very annoyed glances by the guys. We could have rented another car, but they were all too small to fit four large guys. And for protection reasons – they wouldn’t expand on that – they refused to split up into two cars. So, we’re stuck here for the night.

  Oban is a lovely little seaside town, equipped for the thousands of tourists who come here every summer, both to stay and to take a ferry to one of the many islands on the Scottish West coast. Now, at the end of October, it’s quiet and peaceful. The people passing us are mainly locals, and many of the tourist shops are already closed. I always enjoy seeing how a town transforms between seasons. It’s like the façade the tourists see is slowly fading away until the real town emerges, before being hidden once again when spring arrives. Right now, we’re at the point where both versions merge.

  The last time I stayed in Oban was several years ago on a family holiday, so I walk around open-eyed, taking in the changes and the memories. Behind me, the guys are following, a little less enthusiastic.

  “That’s great, just great. She destroyed the car. I liked that car,” Storm grumbles as he follows us to the MacCulloch Hotel’s entrance. I really want to tell him to drop the topic, but that may be dangerous.

  The woman at the front desk looks a little perplexed when Frost requests a family suite for us – and so must I, because Arc leans down and whispers, “
If you have another flare, all four of us need to be there to contain it.” I nod, uncomfortable at the thought of another magic explosion. If I set fire to the hotel, I could endanger dozens of people. Arc must have read my mind because he adds, “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure nothing happens.”

  Frost turns around from the very flushed looking reception clerk, dangling the keys in his hand like some sort of treasure. “We got the best suite in the house,” he declares, waiting for praise that never comes. His usual frown reappears and he mutters something about ‘no appreciation for his flirting skills’. We follow him into the old-fashioned elevator – everything is gold in there, although it’s flaking at the edges. With me squashed into the middle and the four men all around me, we just about manage to fit into the lift. My body touches theirs in several places, and I can feel the heat rising in my face. Don’t think of how close they are, Wyn. Think of something else… like butterflies. Something neutral, not sexy. Not hot. Not – aargh. I’m going to kill my hormones one of these days.

  I’m relieved when the doors open with a ding, and I can escape the hotness. I’m talking about the temperature, honest.

  Our suite is large, if a little run down. One king-sized bed, two smaller single beds and a sofa.

  “I take the bed,” Frost shouts and throws himself onto the bed. From the sound it makes, I’m sure he’s just broken several springs in it.

  “The princess gets the bed,” Storm growls. What a gentleman. But this whole princess thing irritates me immensely.

  “Would you stop calling me princess? I’ve never even been to the Realms and I know next to nothing about Beira and what she rules over. How can I be a princess if all I know is the human world? My magic is out of control, I have no clue what I’m doing, and...” My voice breaks a little. Damn it, I hadn’t planned to show them how insecure I feel. My eyes are tearing up as I think of how silly I am, standing here in the middle of these Guardians who have no doubt got better things to do than looking after a self-pitying girl. I haven’t cried this much in years, not since puberty and Tom Martin breaking up with me.