The Fae World: Benira: Lena: Saving Jake (part 2)

[kajones_writing]

Part 1

Mal, as Lena had expected, wasn’t at home, which meant she had time to talk to Jake. It wasn’t going to be a lot of time, she knew that from the moment she looked at the clock, but it was enough. Sighing, she ran her free hand through her hair. Explaining wasn’t going to be easy, it never was, especially when it seemed utterly pointless when she had to wipe his mind of the whole night, and she knew she would never be able to see him again. Getting close to a human was a mistake she could rectify, even though she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to.

“Where am I?” Jake asked, squeezing her hand again.

“Benira,” Lena replied. “Our world is connected to your world by a series of portals and moving doors.”

“This is a different world.”

Lena nodded. “I was born here and I live here. I just work on your world, keeping some of the nastier creatures from hurting your race.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Biting on her lip, Lena looked at Jake for the first time since they had walked into Mal’s home. “Would you have believed me?”

Jake stared at her. “Probably not, but it would have been nice if you had been honest with me.”

“I would have lost you and I, stupidly, cared too much to put our relationship in jeopardy.” Lena sighed. “I should have been honest with you from the beginning, because then neither of us would be in this position.”

“You are right,” Mal said, as he stepped into the room, making Lena jump. When she glanced over at Jake she was amazed by how calm he was, considering what had happened. “Telling him would have solved the issue, but we both know it’s never that simple. What if he’d have mentioned it to someone else, someone who did take what they were being told seriously, and they went out trying to hunt trolls without any training.” Mal shrugged. “Remember the big picture, Lennie. Doing one thing could lead to a number of problems. This one is solvable, mostly, although wiping his memories isn’t going to be easy, especially as he’s not going to let me do it.”

“No, I’m not.” Jake didn’t sound even slightly worried. “There is always another option.”

“It has been done before, but only in exceptional circumstances. You would need to give me a reason to suggest it to the Council.” Mal made his way across the room. “How long have the two of you been together?”

“Together in what way? I’ve known Lena for nearly three years now and we’ve been together for six months.”

“How did you manage that, Lennie? You’ve only been permitted to leave Benira for a year.”

“Answering that question would be a mistake.”

“Not answering it would be a bigger one.” Mal studied Lena and she did her best not to shiver, wondering why she had chosen Malachy, of all people, to be her mentor. “I promise I won’t get anyone who helped you in trouble, especially not Dylan.”

“Dylan didn’t help me.” Lena bit her lip. “There’s an unguarded portal about three miles away that I found when I was out exploring and when I realised where it went… Mal, I wanted a life. Here…” She shook her head. “I was being guarded all the time, because of who I was, but I didn’t need that. Every day I felt a little more smothered, so when there was a chance of being free I took it.”

“Is that why you chose me to be your mentor, instead of someone more suitable?”

“Of course it is.” Lena ran a hand through her hair. “You don’t care who I am.”

“Lennie, I do care who you are. I just don’t think you should be treated any differently simply because of that and being your mentor puts me in an interesting position, especially when you do stupid things. When the time comes you won’t be able to chose who you’re with.”

“That all depends on where I am.”

“We both know that is a very bad idea.”

“Maybe, but in the end it is my decision.”

“You’re the Crown Princess, Lena. You can’t just walk away.”

“Watch me.”

“You’re what?” Jake asked, his calm fading for the first time.

Lena sighed. “The next in line to the increasingly pointless throne. Fortunately Mal is the only person I currently I have in my life who actually knows that, because that way I can just stop thinking about it all for a little while, and now, thanks to him, you know as well.”

“Okay, Mal, why is the Crown Princess out hunting ogres?”

Mal smiled. “Even Lena has to do national service. It doesn’t matter to the ogres and trolls that she’s the Crown Princess, so it doesn’t matter to the Council, and they were the ones who told her parents that she had to spend the normal ten years with the military before she could even think about taking the throne.”

“I’m so glad they did.” Lena ran her hand through her hair. “For a little while I was worried that they were going to change the rules, because I’m Mother’s only daughter, but thankfully they turned up on my sixteenth birthday and told them that it didn’t matter. Nothing they could say or do was going to change the mind of the Council. Unfortunately, however, they did accept that Mother wanted some less than usual security in place, to make certain that nothing happened to me.”

“So you found an unguarded portal and sneaked onto the other world.”

“Mal, I don’t know how many times I have to say this for you to understand, but I am not taking the throne. Not now, not ever.”

“Civil war.”

“It’s about time.”

“We won’t be able to protect the other world.”

“She’ll have a plan in place, in case I do walk away, because I have told her more times than I can remember that I didn’t want to be Queen.” Lena smiled. “I think she realised I wasn’t just saying that when I chose you as my mentor. The look she gave me… when I leave Benira for good she’ll be ready for it, although it won’t be until I’ve finished my time with the military. I signed a contract and I’m not going to break it.”

“Dylan doesn’t know you’re the Crown Princess?”

For a long moment Lena wasn’t sure what to say. “No, he doesn’t, and how did you know what his name was? You shouldn’t have been able to hear anything.”

“I couldn’t, but I’m a very good lip reader.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?”

“You could easily have been lying to him for some reason. I wanted to wait for your explanation before I accepted that what you were saying to him was the truth.”

“That’s why you were so calm when Mal mentioned having your mind wiped. You already knew it was a possibility and you’d been busy planning your argument against it.”

Jake nodded. “One night is entirely different to three years and the plan would be to rid me of every memory I have of you. That way I wouldn’t go looking for you, which is what I would be likely to do if you’d only removed a night’s worth, because that would start to make me a problem for your continued safety. Especially as you’re the Crown Princess.” He tilted his head to the side in a way that Lena knew meant he was thinking about something that was, for one reason or another, impossible for him to understand. “Why don’t you want to take the throne?”

“Here the Queen is nothing more than a figurehead. All I’d do is sign laws that had already been made and spend the rest of my time bored. Oh, I might even be lucky enough to go on tour so everyone can look at me and be reminded that I’m utterly useless.”

“Change things, then. Become the sort of Queen you want to be rather than the sort of Queen you seem to think you have to be.”

Mal, surprisingly, nodded in agreement and Lena found herself staring at him. “Jake’s right, Lennie. The Queen wasn’t always a figurehead and it might well be time that the council lost at least some of their power. Now that they have it absolutely they’re making so bad decisions, so you’ll have people on your side.”

“Wasn’t one of your worries civil war? That’s exactly what I’d be causing if I want up against the council. Have you lost your mind completely? I know you had a few close calls, but I didn’t think things were that bad.”

“Not if you did it the right way.” Mal smiled. “If you walk away then we’ll have civil war, because the council won’t accept anyone not of your bloodline and we both know who your mother will chose to follow here.” Lena nodded, hating that he was right. “However if you make the choice to look a little closely into the laws that the council have created in order to lessen the power of the Royal family you’re likely to find some discrepancies here and there that you’ll be able to use.”

“You’ve been looking into this.”

“I’m mentoring the Crown Princess. What else was I meant to bloody do, especially when I realised what your plans were?”

“Malachy was the right choice.” Jake sounded amused. “I remember you talking about it before, when I still thought you were normal and doing an actual course, and you told me that you weren’t certain if he was the right person to ask to be your mentor.”

“Lennie…”

“Don’t start, Mal. I didn’t mention any details at all – it’s just that Jake suggested I did a chart, to see which one of my choices would be better, and the others had way more cons in them than pros.”

“She chose you because of one pro, though. You would push her in the ways the others didn’t. I understood why she’d pick someone who would push her then, but it makes even more sense, now that I know why their lack of willingness to push you would be a problem.”

“Jake, you know nothing about my world. Don’t start acting as though you do.” Lena realised she was being nasty to the man she loved and had done for an annoyingly long time, but she was half hoping that she might, if she was lucky, be able to push him away, because then he wouldn’t be in danger any more. “The best thing you could do right now is leave.”

“No, sweetheart, that’s what you want me to do, and I’m not walking away from you just because I’ve found out that you have a different job to the one I though you were doing.” Jake reached out and took her hand. “You did tell me that you were an exterminator, so it wasn’t that much of a lie, really, you just exterminate big scary things instead of little creepy things.”

Lena shook her head. “You can’t seriously want to stay with me.”

“Why not?”

“Now is not the time to be showing your lack of belief in yourself, darling. The boy loves you, even though you kills ogres for a living, and he didn’t even run for the door when he found out your were the Crown Princess of a world he didn’t know existed until about twenty minutes ago. He should have walked away when he realised you were planning on wiping his memories, but instead came up with a plan that would keep him here with you.” Mal shook his head. “Tell him you love him and get the smoochie stuff done with, so we can move onto thinking about your future.”

Lena glared at Mal. “We don’t know if his idea is even going to work.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.