Moon's Flower (Kingdom, #6)

She didn’t get to finish her sentence, because this time the flower most definitely shivered, almost violently.

Sucking in a sharp breath, she giggled with delight. “It did, it trembled. Did you see it?” She grinned at her friend, who wasn’t even looking at the flower, but back over her shoulder.

“Calanthe, as much as I adore you and you know that I do, we really must return. If anyone else discovers we are missing they’ll come searching and if they come searching they’ll find us and—”

“Bloody hell, June,” Calanthe rolled her eyes, “I hardly think this the death sentence you seem inclined to believe it is. If anyone should come they’ll see a flower fairy playing with a flower.”

“Unlike any known to man or beast!” June shot to her feet, and growled as she stomped her foot. “We cannot stay. And I do not like that… thing!” She pointed angrily at the flower. “It is not natural.”

“Anymore natural than a talking flower you mean?” Calanthe snapped and instantly felt contrite when June wrapped her arms around her waist. Sighing loudly, shoulders drooping as all fight left her, Calanthe whispered, “Then go.” Standing, she dusted her hands upon her dress. “I am not angry with you and I do not wish to get you into any trouble. But please, just keep my secret. Please.” Lacing her fingers together, she implored her dearest friend.

“Calanthe. Please, just come.”

Giving June a tight-lipped smile, she shook her head. “I’ve waited my whole life to see this, you know I can’t.”

But as she turned to gaze down at her most prized treasure her heart fractured and a wounded cry spilled from her throat.

“Oh no!” Sinking to her knees, she cupped the flower in her hand, trying unsuccessfully, to hold it together. But it was literally dying in front of her. The precious flower was wilting at an alarming rate. The petals were turning an ugly shade of brown, curling up at the edges. The mirrored surface turned dull, opaque and then, in just a matter of seconds, it was gone.

Nothing but a scattered pile of dead petals lay at her feet.

June’s hand clamped onto her shoulders. “Calanthe, at least you can say you saw it. That is more than most will ever get.”

The joy of getting to witness its birth soon gave way to the heart-wrenching ache from its death. Rubbing the spot of her heart, Calanthe gazed up at the moon. She couldn’t explain it, could barely even understand why it hurt so bad. She’d witnessed many flowers die, it was the natural cycle of life, and yet this one had physically hurt to witness.

Unshed tears burned behind her eyes. Knuckling at her left eye she sniffed.

“I waited my whole life to see that, and now it’s gone,” she turned to June.

June’s face tightened into a frown. “There will be more, Calanthe, there always is.”

“No,” she whispered, knowing in her heart that what she’d witnessed tonight had been nothing short of a miracle.

There would never be another flower like this. Because this hadn’t just been a flower to her, it’d been possibility and wonder and something so grand and majestic even she could hardly begin to describe it.

Touching the petals, it’d been like touching a soul. A soul she ached for, craved.

No, nothing would ever compare to the moon flower, she knew that with every fiber of her being.

*

Gasping, body quaking and shivering, Jericho closed his eyes, swallowing gasping a lungful of air.

She was leaving him. The light was surrounding her again, her and her friend. In no time they’d shrunken down to miniature and flew off, but he could no longer follow her.

His body was to weak to even hold itself up. Slumping to the ground beneath him, he rested his elbow on his knee and wondered what had just happened.

Because as impossible as it was to believe, he’d felt her touch. The silken glide of her fingers all over him. Her whispered words as she’d spoken directly to the flower, it’d caressed the shell of his ear and he’d been awash in her heady scent of roses.

Calanthe was her name.

Closing his eyes, body burning, yearning for the erotic caress of her touch yet again, he wished he’d been strong enough to stay there. But with the death of his flower, he’d been snapped back to this godforsaken existence of stone and darkness.

Somehow, someway, Jericho would find her.

He would make her his.





Chapter 3


“Oooohhhh,” a choir of girlish giggles escaped the children as they clapped their hands, pointing at Danika. “How romantic,” several of them murmured all at once.

“Did he find her, Dani?” the little primrose asked, as several sets of eyes locked in on Danika.

Smiling, she shrugged. “Well I guess you’ll just have to wait and see, no?”

“Oh, I hope he found her,” the calalily crooned. “I want him to kiss her and woo her and…”