The Fallen Stars (A Star Child Novel) Read online

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KELLEN—LATE FLIGHT

  Grabbing Calienta’s hand, I ran, pulling her through the crowd. Gabe kept close behind us. We navigated roller bags and toddlers, seniors and teenagers, zigzagging this way and that. Calienta’s dress made our mad dash to the gate awkward; she kept tripping over it every few feet.

  The constant rush of passersby as people headed for their departure gates overwhelmed me. And if it overwhelmed me, what would it have felt like to someone who’d been mortal for approximately fifteen minutes? Add to that all of the strange lights and sounds.

  Finally, we made it to our gate, just a little out of breath. The last zone had been called for boarding. Twelve weary-looking travelers stood in line, all probably searching for potentially polite ways to cut in front of one another.

  A sandwich vendor had set up directly next to the gate. Shoving a fifty-pound note at the guy running it, I grabbed three sandwiches and three soft drinks.

  Gabe and Calienta had gotten into line, so I didn’t have time to wait for the change. “Keep it,” I said, gesturing to the bill I’d just handed the vendor.

  The guy broke into a huge grin, seemingly awestruck at the giant tip I’d just given him. “Thanks!”

  Walking quickly, I reached Gabe and Calienta. Calienta moved to stand behind me. She wrapped her arms around me and laid her head against my shoulder before standing on tiptoe to see in front of me. Gabe handed me my cell phone, passport, and boarding pass without comment.

  I pocketed the phone. Glancing at the passport in my hand, I verified with surprise that it wasn’t a fake, but my actual passport. There was a small white mark on the cover that I’d gotten sometime during my last flight to the UK to see Alistair. Man, Lugh had mad skills.

  Stepping toward Calienta, Gabe smiled at her encouragingly. “Now, Calienta, you need to keep these documents with you at all times, okay?” He handed her a passport and boarding pass.

  She returned his smile as though he’d given her a present. “Thanks, Gabriel.”

  Glaring at Gabe, I fought to keep the edge out of my voice. “I can take care of her Gabe. She’s my wife.”

  Gabe threw me a hard look. “She was almost your wife.”

  Ouch. What a tool. Glaring back, I said nothing further.

  “Kellen, I can hold my own papers.” Calienta’s voice held a note of annoyance.

  Great. I seemed to be ticking everyone off today.

  “I’ve never ridden on an airplane before,” she confessed. Calienta’s annoyance evaporated quickly, and her emotions wrapped around me like a thick blanket. Anxiety. Excitement.

  Reaching back, I squeezed her hand. Then something occurred to me. Tapping Gabe on the shoulder, I said, “But we haven’t been through secur—”

  Surprise made me pause. The boarding pass had already been marked, to indicate a pass through customs.

  “It’s been taken care of,” Gabe barked at me, leading the way to the gate.

  Clearly, his newfound leadership role had gone to his head. Annoyance trailed me like a pesky gnat, refusing to give me any peace. “Did we get first class at least?” My voice held out a last shred of hope. Gabe grunted.

  “What’s first class?” Calienta continued to look around, from all appearances getting excited at the prospect of what the term first class might entail.

  Muttering under my breath, I made my way forward to board the plane. “This is going to be a very long night.”

  As it turned out, we did not get first class. Lugh, the Sun God, the one responsible for all of the light on Earth and controller of the elements, had put us in coach.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CALIENTA—SLEEP

  Kellen led me through a line of people and into a crowded compartment. He’d been considerate enough to explain things to me, like we’d boarded something called an aeroplane.

  My stomach had been making odd sounds for a while and a mildly painful feeling of discomfort had started.

  “You’re probably just hungry,” Kellen said, as he led me to a seat in the back.

  The seat sank in as I leaned back into it. The exterior of the cushioning was smooth beneath my hands, warm to the touch. Kellen placed two packages on a tray in front of me.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “Something to eat. It’s called a sandwich. You’ll like it.” Kellen smiled as he showed me how to open the package.

  I’d humor him by eating, but all I really wanted to do was sleep. They were coming for us. Even in that moment, while we sat with our food, I knew that they were coming for us.

  CHAPTER NINE

  KELLEN—CALL ME CALI

  I’d gotten stuck sitting in the middle seat in the center of the last row of an overbooked flight. Sweat beaded on my forehead and the back of my neck. Sharing my shoulders were Gabe and Calienta, both of whom had fallen asleep. I’d shrugged out of my jacket when we sat down, but even that had done little to keep me cool.

  Gabe snored into my ear, doing his imitation of a freight train. The ultimate nightmare passenger. Calienta slept without a sound. Every once in a while she would snuggle closer to me.

  The woman next to Calienta sat clutching her handbag to her chest and staring at the hem of Calienta’s gown. The lace encroached into the space by the woman’s feet and she observed it as if it were a large insect. Reaching over with my foot, I nudged the gown back under Calienta’s seat to get it out of the way, avoiding the woman’s eye.

  My long leg bumped the tray table in front of Calienta as I pulled it back, jostling the sandwich wrapper and drink that she’d left scattered in front of her. Earlier, Calienta had had an introduction to the concept of a “sandwich”. It had been entertaining watching her dissect it and taste each piece of meat in the Italian sub before putting the entire combination back together.

  “Mmph.” Gabe moved closer to me, putting his hand on my chest, a mirror of the position that Calienta had taken up.

  Annoyed, I shoved at Gabe. “Get off me.” He rolled off and then fell back against me, snuggling into my shoulder. Again.

  “Mom,” Gabe mumbled in his sleep.

  “I’m not your mother.” My hiss jarred him slightly and this time I pushed him off of me and back into his own seat. He never woke. With Gabe moved, I turned to Calienta, hoping I hadn’t woken her. She’d shifted beside me, but didn’t wake. Curious, I reached down and slipped her passport from between her fingers, taking care not to disturb her.

  When we’d boarded, I’d noticed that she’d been given a US passport. There hadn’t been the opportunity to look at it carefully before, with our mad dash to get on the plane. Curiosity got the better of me. Calienta had no last name. What would be on her passport?

  Flipping open the firm navy cover of the brand new passport, I read her name: Cali St. James. A smile broke across my face. Even though we hadn’t gotten married, she would be traveling as my wife. Unexplained possessiveness crept into my veins and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close. Mine.

  Calienta yawned and opened her eyes, looking first at me and then at the open passport in my hand.

  “Hey you.” I kissed her forehead. “Cali St. James?” She blinked. Lifting the passport up, I showed her the first page. She read her name in print and smiled.

  Sitting up straighter in her seat, she took the passport from me, running a finger over the name. A new name for a new life. She looked up from the passport and into my eyes. “I think you should call me Cali,” she said.

  “Cali, huh?” I liked the way that sounded.

  “Yes, it seems more mortal, more normal,” she whispered. “That’s what my sister and brother used to call me when we were younger.”

  Vaguely I kicked around in my head for what age they would have been considered “younger”. Fifty? Seventy-five?

  “I miss my brother and my sister,” she said.. Ah, her sister Rowan. Calienta loved her, but they rarely got a chance to see one another because Rowan had been turned into a mort
al.

  Immortals and mortals rarely kept in touch, as time passed differently in the immortal world. An immortal could hang out for a day and an entire mortal life would pass by, or something like that. No one had gotten the time difference down to an exact science.

  Calienta—Cali—hadn’t told me much about Rowan, other than she’d married a famous musician. She’d never mentioned his name. I had no idea how long ago this had happened; Cali’s concept of mortal time had definitely been skewed.

  Cabhan…Well, his story had been an entirely different one. He’d loved a mortal woman once, but Lugh refused him mortality so he could be with her. After Cabhan got seriously pissed off and tried to kill his father, Lugh forgave him and consented to make Cabhan a mortal. He also helped him travel back in time to be with the woman he loved. Ironically, she ended up being my great-grandmother, squared. Every action so that he could while away the years with his mortal love. Unfortunately, she died several generations ago, which meant so had he. What a long story. At least he had the chance to be with the woman he loved.

  Cali’s eyes watered as she reminisced. “We shortened our names. I was Cali, Rowan was Row, and Cabhan was Cab. Nothing elaborate, but we considered it exciting. We could be anyone that we wanted. My mother scolded us. She didn’t think that immortals should shorten their names.” Her eyes remaining on the passport, she touched her name again. “St. James. I like having your name,” she said, looking up at me.

  My lips sought hers and she responded, sighing against me. No one appeared to be paying attention to us, and we clung to one another in the darkened cabin. My mind contemplated what this night would have been like if we had gotten married. It would have been my wedding night, and I would have been a married man.

  Oh, man.

  Forcing those thoughts away, I pulled back and looked down into her eyes, where confusion appeared to linger. “I’m sorry we didn’t get married today.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t cause any of it to happen.”

  “I’m not so sure. Can—”

  Cali placed a finger to my lips, silencing me. My skin burned where she touched me. “Kellen, let’s not say her name. I don’t think we should speak of it.”

  One of the cardinal rules in dealing with Faeries was you never spoke of them directly if you could avoid it. It had been known to attract their attention, particularly at night when they roamed the mortal world freely.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Nodding, I rocked for a second against the seat, causing it to hit the wall behind me.

  “It’s not your fault, Kellen,” Cali said again.

  “I know I didn’t cause it, but I wish things could have been different.” I pulled her head to me again. She shivered against me. “Are you cold?” The coolness from her skin seeped through my clothes and I wrapped both arms around her, trying to warm her up.

  “I—I think so.” She seemed perplexed.

  Reaching over, I grabbed a blanket and pillow from the storage pocket in the seat in front of her. Tearing the plastic cover, I removed the hobbit-sized blanket, covered her, and placed a pillow under her head. “How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Warmer.” She snuggled down under the blanket.

  “No, I mean…well, you’re mortal now,” I said, lowering my voice to a whisper as I caught the eye of the passenger in front of us. I glared at him, and after a moment, he returned to his previous position.

  “I think—I think I’m afraid,” she said. Tears welled in her eyes.

  My lips brushed against her forehead. “It’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you. I promise.”

  She smiled. “I know you will, Kellen. It’s just that I don’t know how to do anything. I’m—”

  “Vulnerable. Like you have to trust someone totally and you’re afraid to take the chance.” Man, did I ever get that.

  “Yes.”

  “That,” I said, shifting in my seat to make it easier on my neck, “is exactly how I felt when I met you. I had to trust you, but I wasn’t used to trusting anyone. Except Gran and Alistair, and even Alistair I didn’t meet until I was older.”

  “What about your Grandda?”

  “I don’t remember him much. I remember what he looked like, but just barely. He died the year before my mother did. He worked as a fisherman.”

  “He was a good man,” Cali confirmed. She looked down at her hands for a moment.

  My brow creased. “You knew him?” I shouldn’t have been surprised.

  She looked back at me, worrying her hands, rubbing them together on and off. “I know of him. It was a sad day when he was lost at sea.”

  Confused, I corrected her. “But he wasn’t…What do you mean, lost at sea? He had a heart attack. That’s what my Gran told me.”

  Cali shook her head. “No, he died in a storm. His ship went down off the coast.” Staring at her, I sat unmoving as I took in this news.

  Facing Cali in the dim cabin, I waited for her to explain about how my Grandda died. The other passengers were sound asleep. The woman next to Cali with the space issue. The man with the Bible who’d been praying loudly throughout most of the journey, making part of me fear an even more imminent death than the one that Cana and company had planned for us.

  Why was it that Cali always knew more about my family than I did? And did my Gran lie to me about how Grandda had died?

  Secrets. Yeah, it’s not like my family didn’t have any of those.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CALI—GRANDDA

  As I sat with Kellen on the air-o-plane, I watched an odd expression shift across his face. Oh, no. I thought that he’d known about his Grandda…what was his name again?

  Unease filled my heart. I couldn’t remember. I should have been able to remember the man’s name, but it had left me entirely. If I’d been honest, I didn’t remember the entire story about him either. But now I’d opened my mouth and I’d have to tell Kellen something.

  “A horrible storm battered the coastline. Your Grandda went out in his fishing boat and got caught in it. He couldn’t navigate to port in the storm. The ship kept crashing against the rocks.” That much I knew. Hopefully he wouldn’t ask me which storm or which ship. Why couldn’t I remember?

  Kellen sat back and looked away. This had upset him. If only I’d kept quiet! Kellen didn’t need any more tragedy in his life, any more secrets. “Don’t say any more, please,” he whispered.

  I truly felt for Kellen. He’d been lied to so much and about so many things. He closed his eyes, no doubt imagining the scene in his mind. It would have been the most horrible death.

  Placing my hand on his arm, I gave it a squeeze. He looked down at it, as if he’d only just noticed I’d been touching him.

  “Why did Gran keep this from me?” Kellen and his Gran had been close, despite the physical distance between them most of the time.

  “I’m sorry, Kellen,” I said. “She probably just didn’t want you to know, to worry for him.” My heart went out to him, this man that I loved.

  “Do you think they know where we are, Cali?” he asked, unmoving.

  “I don’t know, Kellen. I just don’t know,” I said, and I meant it.

  Kellen expelled a breath and closed his eyes. After a time, his breathing told me that he’d fallen asleep. Looking up, I met Gabriel’s eyes.

  “What will they do to him if they catch us?” Gabe asked, his voice seeming strained from the effort of whispering.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but the answer I’d been planning to give disappeared. It seemed eerily similar to when I couldn’t remember the whole story about Kellen’s Grandda. But there was one part that I could remember…one thing that I understood as fact. I shared it with Gabriel now. “They’ll keep him forever.”

  As I watched Gabriel blanch, I prayed that the Children of Danu would not get the opportunity, because there was nothing I’d be able to do to stop them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KELLEN—LIE

  Wh
en I awoke, both Cali and Gabe were chatting in low tones across me. Stretching my arms up in the air, I reached for the ceiling. The pair sat up as I unintentionally ended their discussion. We were about seven hours into the flight. With the time change, it was only around eight o’clock at night, though as dark as the UK that we’d left behind.

  Though I’d slept, no dreams assaulted me, something that still surprised me. After so many years of vividly dreaming of Cali throughout my life, I half-expected to see her whenever I closed my eyes. Yet she no longer needed to haunt my dreams; she’d moved into my reality.

  Excusing myself, I got up and headed toward the facilities. Walking felt good; even taking the three steps to reach the bathroom represented some action.

  Did they know where we were? The thought popped into my head, making my heart rate pick up. We were over water at that very moment, which meant if they brought the plane down, we’d be screwed.

  Shrugging off the worries, I reached the bathroom and walked in, shutting the door behind me and sliding the lock. I looked at myself in the tiny mirror under the dingy lighting of the airplane toilet. I hadn’t changed much from my graduation day: still the same pale guy, my only distinguishable feature my vivid green eyes. A manager at a frozen yogurt place had once called them “compelling.” I’d left without placing an order.

  My dark brown hair hung in a longer style despite my recent cut, and leaned toward the category of “disheveled.” Splashing some cold water on my face, I thought, I need coffee. It seemed easier to focus on such a mundane thing as caffeine than on the freaks that were following us.

  Turning, I opened the door and found Cali standing just outside it. It occurred to me that she probably didn’t know about basic mortal necessities like using the bathroom. Yet she brushed past me with confidence and shut the door. Nonplussed, I remained there for a moment before making my way to my seat.