Honey Queen

By Christina Mercer

Young Adult Fantasy/Romance
Regional SCBWI "Best in Show"

Love is honey sweet, but it comes with a fatal sting . . .

Melaina Maris needs wings to fly the gap between loving Sam and her family’s ancient curse that forces carnal love and then kills the male lovers. She won’t let the same fate that killed her father befall another. She refuses to allow her goddess-created bloodline to continue. But there’s no easy way out, especially after the curse turns her into the Honey Queen—savior to honey bees—intensifying her charms.

To help her fulfill the curse’s demands in the least harmful way, her grandmother takes her to mate with terminally ill Boyd. But Boyd’s gay. And an expert in mythology. Instead of having sex, Melaina learns how she might summon the goddess who created the ancestor bee-charmer and cursed her bloodline. Melaina's magic—tears to save honey bees from endangerment—could be enough to persuade the goddess to end the curse. But an unexpected discovery soon changes that hope, spinning Melaina into a swarm of love, friendship and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christina Mercer
• Release date: Aug 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311403469

Christina Mercer

Christina Mercer is an award-winning author of fiction for children and young adults. Honored titles include Tween/YA Fantasy ARROW OF THE MIST and its sequel ARMS OF ANU, and YA Paranormal Romance HONEY QUEEN. She is also a once-upon-a-time CPA and the author of BEAN COUNTING FOR AUTHORS. Christina enjoys life in the foothills of Northern California with her husband and sons, a pack of large dogs, and about 100,000 honeybees. To learn more about her and her writing, visit www.christinamercer.com

Book preview

© 2014 Christina Mercer

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

Distributed in the U.S.A.

Christina Mercer

P.O. Box 1845

Shingle Springs, CA 95682

www.christinamercer.com

Hosted by indie-visible ink

www.indie-visible.com

Cover art by Chelsea Starling

Formatted by Novel Ninjutsu

Edited by Sarah Benelli

Chapter 1: Spring Fever

Chapter 2: Hand of Fate

Chapter 3: Food for Thought

Chapter 4: Milk and Honey

Chapter 5: Mirror, Mirror

Chapter 6: Uncapped

Chapter 7: Tea Time

Chapter 8: Virgin Blood

Chapter 9: Rumble Bee

Chapter 10: Cursed

Chapter 11: Weapons

Chapter 12: Salt Sea

Chapter 13: Caged

Chapter 14: Friends

Chapter 15: Lady’s Choice

Chapter 16: Sacrifice

Chapter 17: Queen Bee

Chapter 18: Drones

Chapter 19: Tears

Chapter 20: Wings

Acknowledgments

About the Author

For Dwayne and our boys,

Joshua and Quinton

And for the Honey Bees

The kiss of a sting sends heat up my arm. I don’t flick away the stinger. Instead, I watch the barb pulse like a heartbeat as it unloads its venom. Pleasure and guilt war within me. I’ve never before felt the sensation of a sting, as if a swarm buzzed through my veins. Nor have I ever murdered one of my own. But life with our honey bees changed last summer. Now our connection to them is even more twisted, morphed into a love-hate battle I wish would end.

I know, I say with partial regret, as squadrons of bees swoop in to investigate their sister’s death. The banana-like scent of alarm pheromones fills my nose. I pull on my glove, deciding not to kill any others or further tempt fate. Even one sting raises my risk of becoming like Mom, crazy with need, using alcohol to replace her addiction to bee venom. But I had to understand what seduced my mother. I had to taste the pleasure that deceives, so that I know firsthand what I’m fighting against.

I wait until the buzzing heat of the sting fades, ignore the temptation to expose my flesh again, and continue to work the hives. Three colonies down, three more to go—just enough to pollinate our fruit orchard and release the pheromones Gran, Mom, and I need to stay alive.

A part of me misses the rows of hives that used to make up our apiary, how spring’s arrival was like a big party with a million honey bees as our guests. A bigger part of me misses my mother who, before last summer, danced in the orchard every morning and sang to me every night. Now it’s my turn to come out here in the morning and greet bees that would kill her in a wing’s flutter but that we both depend on for life.

My hand tool slips from my glove and lands with a clang on the metal surface of a hive cover. Crap. Maybe if I wasn’t wearing this idiot suit I wouldn’t be fumbling like this. I hate the barrier I’m forced to wear. It’s hot, confining, and my net prevents me from shoving a chunk of honeycomb into my mouth.

The bees eye me as if I’m on their last nerve. I hurry through the frames of comb, noting an acceptable number of brood cells, no signs of wax moth or mold, and enough pollen and honey to feed the troops. Gran will be relieved. I lug my tools back to the shed, and strip off my netted hat and overalls. Sweat glues my hair to the side of my face. Winter wussed out weeks ago or it’s playing tricks on us again. I could wake up tomorrow to find the blooms frigid and the bees huddled in their hives once more. Then Mom could venture outside.

Well, a girl can hope.

Back in the house, I grab one of the jars of honeycomb Gran keeps stashed in the cupboard and treat myself to a mouthful. The sweetness roars through my veins, mixing with the venom in my bloodstream, causing every part of my body to hum like electrical wires in the rain.

You know the rules, Melaina. Gran’s voice cuts through my high. She twists her salt-and-pepper hair into a knot and retrieves a canister from the cupboard. Bee season has just started, and I already smell the venom inside you.

Damn.

It was just one sting, before I could get my glove—

Gran grabs my shoulders and plants me in a chair. She plasters a gooey mix of green clay and honey on my hand. The mark of the sting is undeniable, shining as if I’d sprouted amber from my skin. Gran and the generations of women before her never met with a honey bee’s sword. Last year, Mom was the first of our family to be stung, the first to require beekeeper clothing. Now, I’m forced to do the same.

Every time you’re stung, Gran says, pinning frost-gray eyes on me, you intensify your need. You’ll begin to crave their venom just as you do the honey. I wish you didn’t bear this burden, but they don’t know us anymore. As the youngest keeper of our line, you must be careful if you want to survive.

Anger and despair settle in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t ask for this curse, and I’ll never pass it on to a child. Our two-thousand-year-old burden ends with me.

The hives look decent, I say, changing the subject, and I rise from the chair. I head upstairs and hear Mom crying. Again.

I enter her room and she lifts tear-filled eyes. Crying has enhanced the amber scars covering her face, turning them glossy. Another empty bottle sits amid scattered seashells on her dresser. It’s not even 9 a.m.

What is it, Mom? I sit next to her on the bed and drape my arm over the sharp edges of her shoulders. We are all thin. Like bees, we have fast metabolisms, though Mom has withered to bones.

She swallows hard. Spring is always the beginning, the birth of another season. We have an entire spring and summer ahead of us. If we can make it that long—

We’re all being careful. I get up and close the window, shutting away the outdoors.

I smell them on you, like dew drying in the sun. She closes her eyes for a moment. Then she shoots me a look, and I can’t tell if she’s sad or angry. Probably both. You should be off with kids your own age, going to regular school, shopping at the mall, out on a date, for Christ’s sake.

Here we go.

I’m fine by myself, fine with home school, and I don’t give a fu—flip about kids my own age.

Her chin juts upward. Not even Sam?

She hit a nerve, and by the triumph flashing across her eyes, I know she’s glad. She’s only grasping for some way to make life normal for me. But even if there were a hundred Sams at my side, I’d be a fool to believe in normalcy.

We’re not little kids anymore; Sam has his own life. He turns eighteen in August and his dad’s pushing him to join the army.

His dad is a beetle—a black stink bug, polluting everything he touches. There’s not a fence big enough to separate his land from ours.

I’m on a ship, sailing through the storm of my mother’s mood. I steer her toward smoother waters. Here, Mom, I say, handing her the bag of candy she keeps on her bedside table. Gran got your magazines this morning. You can read all about who’s cheating on who in Hollywood.

With a long sigh, she leans back on her pillow and reaches in the bag. She slides a taffy into her mouth, and her cheek pokes out on one side. Do you remember the time Sam stood up for you in second grade, after that lunch lady scolded you for eating your bun and leaving the hot dog?

I force a nod. The candy hasn’t helped. She insists on tearing the scab off a painful memory. I’m going to take a shower, and then I can bring you some toast or . . . something.

I’m not hungry. Her eyes take that vacant look. She’ll wait until I leave and then grab another bottle of mead from her closet. She has only two choices left to her: she either dies slowly, hiding indoors half the year and drowning her pain in fermented honey, or she dies quickly, venturing outside, where the bees will sacrifice their lives to kill a creature akin to a foreign queen. For the bees’ sake, she goes with the first choice.

I kiss her brow, grab the empty bottle off her dresser, and head for the bathroom. Twenty minutes later, I’m back downstairs.

You’re not going to school like that, are you? Gran’s jowls hang like wet laundry.

I’m comfortable, I retort, shuffling across the floor in my leather moccasins. Besides, it’s not a real school. There’s no one there except a couple of helper teachers and kids like me using the computers.

If we had our own computer, I’d be finished with high school by now. But Gran believes computers are a government ploy to peek inside our homes. We don’t have cell phones either, though our house phone is at least wireless and not dangling some long curly cord.

Well, it wouldn’t kill you to look like a girl once in awhile. I mean really, Melaina, lumberjacks wear flannel shirts, not sixteen-year-old girls. Let me at least braid your hair.

I fill a to-go mug with hot tea and milk, and add several chunks of honeycomb.

You’re pushing it, Gran says, coming at me with a brush and tie to bring out the highlights in my long brown hair.

I put the spoon down. She’s right. I’m nearly drooling again. Sorry, I say, and let her wrestle my mane into a ponytail before I pull away. Gotta go.

I head out the door and glance up at my mother’s room. Her hand flattens on the window as if she’s trapped in a jar. Everything inside me tightens. Gran will take care of her now; she’ll brush out her thinning black hair and feed her real food, using bottles of mead as her bribe.

I slide inside my sky blue 1968 Chevelle—a gift to my mother from my dad when I was on the way. Dad and his car were both born in 1968, but Dad died twenty-six years later. As with all men who impregnate the women of my bloodline, he died the day his daughter was born. Mom said she did everything to prevent getting pregnant, but three methods of birth control couldn’t stand in the way of our ancient curse.

Gran showed a bit more cleverness. After a failed tubal ligation and then a botched hysterectomy due to the medical staff fleeing the operating room for no apparent reason (Gran claims she excreted too many alarm pheromones), she knew our curse would force her to procreate. So, she hurried the process her own way. She volunteered at the local hospital and sought out the terminally ill. Grandpa was a charming man in the prime of his life, smart and funny, and riddled with cancer. He died from his disease before Mom was born.

The 396 Chevy engine roars to life and I let it warm up before I put the car into gear. Old cars are like old people, Gran always says. Have to wake them slowly. A few of the knots loosen within me as I make my way down our gravel drive, through our rural neighborhood, and onto the highway. I arrive at Charter Home Academy in fifteen minutes.

My low-profile life is interrupted by the attention my car attracts. Muscle cars are as irresistible to guys as sunflowers are to bees. I’ve thought a hundred times about selling it and buying something small and beige. I have a hundred more thoughts about the father I wish I’d known.

Cool car, one of them says.

Nice rally wheels, another one utters.

Yeah, thanks, I say, keeping my eyes fixed ahead.

I walk inside the building, huddle at one of the computers, and start surfing the net. Technically, I’m a junior, but I’ve completed everything but English 4 and Economics to graduate. If I work hard, I’ll be done a year early. I fool myself into thinking the faster I finish high school and college, the sooner a career in oceanography or marine biology will take me away from the Sierra foothills to live in a city like San Francisco, Seattle, or maybe Sydney, Australia.

It’s never been done, Gran tells me regularly. None of us can live without the pheromones. Oh, you can live on another piece of land with honey bees of your own, but city life will never be an option for you. You need at least six hives to provide enough, Melaina, and if you venture too far for more than a day, you’ll grow sick. Go more than a week, and you’ll die. You’re the last of our line, the only one left with our gift.

I laughed when she gave me that spiel again last week, reminded her how our gift keeps my mother a prisoner in her house and a slave to liquor, how it kills the men that love us, and forces us to labor over a bunch of insects.

That did it with Gran. She slapped me across the face and dragged me to our bookshelves, where she keeps journals dating back to the 1700s, logs of our family tree, and oral stories put onto paper over a century ago. I’d flipped through them from time to time, but they were like a stack of National Geographic, nice to own but rarely read.

Gran pulled out the largest book from a bottom shelf and blew off some dust. You are going to read this from cover to cover. Every day a handful of pages, and I’ll know if you’ve read them or not. When you’re finished with this book, you can insult the bees and tell me where to shove my opinions. But not until then.

I’m reeled from my thoughts as the office attendant bends over my shoulder to look at my computer screen. My, my, you’ve been here quite awhile. Looks like you’re researching ancient Greece.

Yeah, I’m studying the, uh, Trojan War.

Oh, and ancient beekeeping because I’m related to bees who want to kill my mom and I’m hoping to find anything that might help us.

Very good, she says. You know we have a small collection of history books in the back room. You’re welcome to check any of them out.

Thanks, I say, tapping my finger on the mouse. I actually found what I needed. I’m just finishing up.

The truth is I’ve wasted three hours and found nothing that ties to my family’s lineage or resembles what’s happening to Mom.

She smiles and shuffles away to the guy who’s been playing online games and smacking gum for more than an hour.

On my way home, I stop and grab the mail at the end of our drive, and Sam rolls up in his white pick-up with the words Leonard’s Dairy Ranch painted across the side. Hey, Mel, he says, chocolate eyes melting my insides. Been a while.

I swallow hard, hoping the rush of heat to my face doesn’t show. Yeah, well, I’m trying to graduate early, and you know, busy helping Gran.

He nods, and his eyes flicker over my car. You ever feel like riding shotgun in that thing, I’d be more than happy to take the wheel.

I get back in my car and toss the mail on the seat next to me. I’ll remember that.

He laughs, and just as I shut the door, he calls out, Go out with me.

Shit.

I take a deep breath and roll down the window. His brown shag drapes around his smile. His perfect, irresistible smile. Sam, you’re my best friend. I don’t want to ruin that. Besides, I have to stay focused on school.

That’s bull, Mel, and you know it. Having a little fun isn’t going to turn you into your mom.

He knows me well, has since I was in the first grade and he was in the second, but he still doesn’t know what I am. Gran calls us Apis charmers; I call us Apis slaves. And I’d bet him the pink slip to my car, he’d feel differently about dating me if he knew the truth.

You’re right. I’m not going to end up like my mom, and the best way to make sure I don’t is to stay away from distractions. With a wave, I speed down the drive.

I don’t realize how hard I’m biting my lip until I taste blood. Sometimes I wonder if it’d be easier to run away and let the sickness take me. Sam is pure torture—the sweetest hot fudge sundae, the rarest orchid, the love I can never know.

I rub my eyes, refusing to cry, and blink at the sight of my mother. Outside! My heart jumps into my throat. She’s in her bee suit, protected from stings but swarming with bees nonetheless. I bolt from my car and rush toward her, halting before I’m too close to the swarm.

What are you doing out here? You’re killing them! Bee after bee falls away, leaving tiny stingers to pulse venom into her cloth armor.

I’m sorry, Melaina, Mom cries over the buzzing. I can’t go another day in that house.

She raises her arms, as if she’s reaching for the sky, and she starts to sing.

I rush into the house and find Gran napping in her room. Mom’s outside in her suit!

Gran’s eyes fly open and she lifts herself out of bed. Lord help us, she says, shoving her feet into her slippers.

I tear down the hall and back out the front door, and Mom’s gone. I listen for the bees, but there’s no buzzing. A chill runs up my spine. Gran and I circle the house and workshop. Still no sign of her.

Please, no, not the hives!

The look painting Gran’s face matches the horror gripping my insides. Gran can’t run, but I sprint through the orchards toward the bee yard. A high-pitched noise fills my ears, like the trumpeting of a queen bee in battle amplified a hundred times. Alarm pheromones flood my senses. I tear through a row of cherry trees and a whimper slips through my lips as I spot Mom on the ground, naked and covered with bees.

Oh, God!

I scramble for the nearby hose and turn on the sprayer full blast. Bees fall off her in waves, but she’s unmoving, her eyes shut. Screams fill my ears, and I realize they’re my own. Hands grasp my shoulders and pull me backward. Strong arms surround my torso, and the hose falls from my hand. Gran’s cries and Sam words, I’ve got you, are all I hear before darkness carries me away.

We spread Mom’s ashes a month later at the base of the massive oak tree where she used to sit and read for hours. Gran and I are her only mourners, though Sam leaves a bouquet of wildflowers on the porch every morning before he heads to school. I still can’t bring myself to see him, but he comes over anyway. We add his flowers to the others serving as mulch for the tree.

Turns out, Sam hadn’t finished with our talk at the mailbox. He’d driven up just in time to see Gran and me rush into the orchard. Ironically, the handful of stings he’d taken while carrying me