by S. Young
“Why?”
Fionn studied the carpet. His tone was almost melancholy when he replied, “You and I are the same. There’s so few of us left.” There was something fierce in those striking eyes that made her breath catch. “Less than a handful. It’s a miracle I found you.”
Hearing the sincerity in his words, and perhaps even a hint of longing, Rose whispered, “What am I?”
“You,” he said, leaning forward, “are one of the fae.”
Rose stared incredulously at him. “The what now?”
His expression darkened with obvious impatience. “This will go easier if you suspend your disbelief. Someone put a powerful spell on you to block your abilities. The vampire attack, knocking you to the ground, it broke the spell.”
The light that flew out of her body …
“But I think you’ve always been strong, Rose, haven’t you? Stronger than normal.”
Yeah, she had always been. Especially for her size. Friends had commented on it. Her coach had too. But it had just been something everyone accepted about Rose Kelly.
She was weirdly strong.
“Spell?” The words from the girl at the club … “You have a block on you. A spell. Someone has blocked your access to your powers.” The young woman and her brother hadn’t been messing with her. “That’s what the girl said last night.”
Fionn tensed, alert. “What girl?”
“I don’t know. She was around my age. She and her brother ambushed me at the club. She said someone had put a spell on me that blocked my powers.”
Even though his tone was bland, Rose felt waves of energy from him. He was agitated. “Did she say anything else?”
“Stuff that made little sense. Oh, and they were Irish. Her name was Niamh and his was Ronan …” Rose frowned trying to remember the full name the girl had given. “Uh …” Then it hit her. “Ronan Farren. Niamh and Ronan Farren.”
Fionn sat back in his chair. “Farren? Are you sure?”
“Do you know them?”
“What you are is a dangerous thing to be,” he said instead of answering. “Whoever put the spell on you did so to protect you. Of that I have no doubt. Could it be your parents? Do they have magic?”
Magic? Her parents.
Rose shook her head, her mind whirling. “My … I’m adopted. My adoptive mother is my aunt. Her sister was my mom.”
“Does your aunt have magic?”
“What?”
“Is your aunt a witch?”
Rose guffawed, standing to her feet. “A witch. They’re real too?”
Fionn sighed and steepled his hands together under his chin as he studied her thoughtfully. “Witches, warlocks, werewolves, and vampires are real. Our world is made up of energy. There are some who can wield it—witches and warlocks can tap into that energy and use it to do things humans consider magical. But the energy here has limitations for humans. Fae belong to a world that crackles with an abundance of energy that runs through not only the ground beneath their feet but is also inside them. They’re not just born to wield that energy … they are that energy.
“Centuries before I was born, a gate was opened between our two worlds, and the fae began to invade. They treated humans as amusements, causing torment and leaving havoc in their wake, stealing humans and bringing them back to Faerie. I was born human in what is now Ireland. The gate was near the coast, miles and miles from my homestead. I led my men against the fae”—his features hardened—“but we couldn’t win. Not even the druids could fight them. So I made a bargain with their leader … the Faerie Queen.”
Rose placed her fingers to her temples and stared at him in horror. He was insane. This was insane. “The Faerie Queene. As in the epic poem by Edmund Spenser?”
Fionn visibly tensed. “Do I detect mockery in your tone?”
Her blood chilled at the warning in his voice. “No. Just suspended belief.”
“Where do you think the legends and myths about faeries come from, Rose?” He curled his lip. “From truths that have been altered by rumor and by time. But the fae are quite real. They’re not mischievous tiny little flying people … they look as human as you or me. But they’re not. They have powers beyond human imagination. And Faerie is a world of creatures dark and light.”
Slumping back onto the couch, Rose decided to play along. “Okay, so you said they opened a gate between our worlds. Are we talking multiple dimensions here?”
“Yes.”
A bulb burst in the light shade next to her.
Rose let out a small cry and jumped in fright just as another burst on the sideboard near Fionn.
“Calm down, Rose.”
The remaining lights flickered frantically.
“Rose.” He held up an appeasing hand.
“What?” She stared at him in disbelief. “You think I’m doing this? No. No way. This is nuts.” Rose flew to her feet. “You’re just a psycho feeding me bullshit fairy tales. Let me leave.”
Just like that, he disappeared.
Poof.
Just gone.
A prickling sensation tickled down her spine.
“Calm down—”
She yelped, whirling around to find Fionn standing directly behind her. “How …” She stumbled away from him.
One minute he’d been there and then he was over there.
No.
“Holy fuck! I’m losing my mind, aren’t I?”
He threw her an impatient look. “You know you’re not.”
“What … what do you want with me?”
Fionn shrugged, looking weary. “There’s more to the story but for now, I’ll tell you that the gate closed over two thousand years ago, and the queen did it to protect the human world from a war with the fae we’d never survive. But there are beings out there who want to reopen the gate, and you’re the key. If they kill you on the exact spot the gate exists, it will reopen.
“I’m trying to protect you. I’m trying to show you who you are. Moreover, I have the means to find out who your mother and father were.”
“I already know who they were. They lived in Cork in Ireland. They died in a car crash when I was one.”
“But someone knew to put a spell on you to protect you, Rose.” He gestured to her head. “Someone in your family knows what you are and have lied about it. I can help you find answers.”
Rose blinked rapidly. The pull she felt toward him was muddling her because she wanted to believe his nonsense. Mostly, however, she just wanted to get the hell out of there. “If you are trying to help me, prove it. Let me walk out of here unharmed.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw seconds before he disappeared again and then reappeared by his jacket.
“Would you stop doing that?”
He shot her a dark look as he rifled through his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a card. Slowly, he crossed the room toward her. “I’m just trying to get you used to it.” He offered her the card. “I can teach you to move like me. I can teach you to control the power that’s been locked inside you. Take it.” He gestured with the business card. “Call me when you’re ready to believe.”
As the door closed behind Rose Kelly, Fionn fought the urge to chase after the girl. His patience strained. Before walking into the hotel room with the food she didn’t touch, Bran had called to say there was movement from the Blackwood Coven. Bran kept tabs on all the coven hunters, and two of their hunter warlocks had just appeared on the American Airlines database for flights to Zagreb.
They had time. But not a lot. If the burst of powerful magic from the spell breaking had alerted the Blackwoods, other supernaturals would have felt it too.
Yet, Fionn knew if he wanted Rose to trust him, to follow him willingly to Ireland and to her death, she needed to believe that he meant no harm. It was a risk to let her go, but she was so freaked out, he was 99.9 percent certain he’d get a call within twenty-four hours.
Her power was in its infancy. She had no control.
She’d need him before
the next sunrise.
6
It was still dark outside so Rose had the hotel call a cab for her. It wasn’t like her to waste money on frivolous things like taxis, but she was giving herself a pass since she’d just been attacked by a vampire.
That was the truth.
As much as what Fionn had told her was insane, the vampire attack was real.
And something was happening to her.
Adrenaline coursed through Rose’s body, making her jittery and anxious. The farther the car drove from Fionn, the worse it got. Despite all his crazy talk, despite his less than warm, fuzzy manner, there was something about him that drew her.
Something about him that made her feel weirdly safe.
“Šta jebote …” The driver slammed his hand on his wheel, drawing Rose’s regard forward.
His headlights cast a glow across the quiet street, but they flickered frantically while his radio whipped through the channels.
“Glupi auto!” the driver growled, hitting the wheel again. “Ne treba mi ovo sranje!”
From the little Croatian Rose had picked up over the last few months, he was cursing his stupid car.
Yet, she realized, it wasn’t the car’s fault it was malfunctioning.
It was hers.
“Calm down, Rose,” she reassured herself, drawing in a deep breath. Calm. Calm. You’re okay. You’re safe.
Almost immediately, the driver’s headlights stopped flickering and the radio stuck to one station. The driver grumbled something unintelligible, and Rose tried to relax against the back seat.
The driver stopped outside her apartment. Once she’d paid and bolted from the car, the calm she’d been holding on to started to slip again. Mostly because in her frantic desire to get into her apartment, she pushed at the building’s front door as she fumbled for her keys and she burst it open. Lock and all.
Rose gaped at the heavy door as it swung back to her, splintered wood sticking out of it near the locking mechanism.
Holy shit.
Even though it was still the early hours of the morning, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was around to have seen that. Relieved she was alone, she hurried upstairs to her apartment, wishing she was already inside, and suddenly, the world blurred past her.
She was speeding.
Like Supergirl.
The realization made her falter, bringing her out of warp speed and causing her to slam against her apartment door.
Rose stumbled and stared toward the staircase.
She’d just blasted up three flights of stairs in seconds.
“Okay, that was weird,” she huffed, looking down at her legs. A small, slightly hysterical smile curled her lips. “And fucking cool.”
When Rose wanted a cup of tea and the kettle flew across the room at her head, that was less cool.
Her neighbor pounded on the wall seconds after the kettle smashed into pieces against it, leaving cracks in the plaster.
When she decided she wanted a shower and found herself in her bathtub in the blink of an eye, just like how Fionn had moved in the hotel room, Rose started to freak a little.
If she couldn’t control these powers, she’d give herself away.
What if Fionn hadn’t been lying? What if there were people, beings, out there who wanted to use her? To kill her?
Shaking, Rose slumped down in the tub.
Her whole life she’d felt like there was something missing. As a kid, she’d had this unnatural drive to succeed at gymnastics because the competitive sport gave her focus away from this strange feeling that had followed her around since before she could remember.
When her parents sat her down at sixteen and revealed they’d adopted her, Rose thought that was why she’d felt lost her whole life. Like there was a piece of her out there and she’d never feel complete without it. But to discover her birth mom was the aunt she’d thought had died in a car crash before she was born, along with her birth father, Rose knew she’d never find that piece. It was gone. Her adoptive mom, Anna, had told her there was no family left in Ireland. Anna’s parents died when she was young, and her sister was all she’d had.
Tragic for Anna.
Tragic for Rose.
It didn’t take a psychologist to realize that the reason Rose wandered was because she was still searching. And she’d been happy to wander.
Yet, now, sitting in the bathtub, scared but exhilarated by the possibilities before her, that ache inside her, the feeling she’d attributed to her missing piece … it was gone.
The ache was gone.
Rose pressed a hand over her heart.
It was the spell. All this time it was the spell that had made her feel incomplete.
Without access to her powers, she’d felt incomplete.
Did her mom know? Anna. Did she know? Or was this something her birth mother had done to her? So many questions … but who could she really trust?
Fionn’s face drifted into her mind and her pulse raced.
What was it about that guy?
She frowned. He wasn’t just a guy … and yet he’d told her he’d once been human. How had he become what he was? And was he—was she—really one of the fae?
It was something out of a fairy tale, right?
On the back of that thought, Rose decided she might as well shower and start the day because there was no way she could sleep after all this.
A squeak made her heart falter seconds before a stream of cold water hit her on the head.
“Argh! Fuck, fuck!” She dove out of the tub, shuddering as she glared at her showerhead. It had come on at the mere thought of taking a shower. Rose whipped off her shirt and grabbed a towel, wiping away the freezing-cold droplets on her skin and scrunching her wet hair.
“Okay.” She snarled at the shower. “Maybe it’s not a fairy tale after all.”
Rose decided it was safer to stick to her apartment for the day until she’d figured out her next move. Unfortunately, privacy wasn’t on the menu. About two hours after she’d gotten home, the building had come to life with people leaving their apartments for work. The smells from the bakery downstairs were even stronger to Rose’s heightened senses than before. But unlike normal, Rose wasn’t hungry.
She felt too distracted to be hungry.
Rose sat staring blankly at the television, wondering if she should call her mom or use the business card Fionn had slipped into her hand.
It should have been easy. She should have been able to trust her mother over a stranger.
And yet, if her mom had something to do with this spell, then she’d been lying to Rose her whole life.
Another lie.
It was on this distressing thought her apartment door juddered under a pounding knock.
She sighed heavily. The only person who knocked on her door like that was the landlord, Craig. He was a Scot. And not one of the nice ones.
What the hell did he want?
Every time he paid a visit, he swept over the place, stating he was just looking to make sure there was no damage. He liked to intimidate people. Rose wasn’t easily intimidated, and she knew it bothered him so he was extra smarmy with her.
With the way her newfound abilities were making themselves known whenever she had a mere thought, Rose didn’t want to open the door.
“Open up!” Craig yelled.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Rose crossed the small apartment and unlocked the door. Before she could fully open it, the bastard pushed inside. At around five foot eight, Craig wasn’t a tall guy, but he was overmuscled by gym visits. And probably steroids, Rose thought uncharitably. But she wouldn’t put it past him.
He cut her a dark look as he shoved into the apartment, his gaze going straight to the wall.
Oh shit.
She’d totally forgotten about the kettle and the plaster.
“I got a call from your neighbor that there was a disturbance.” Craig gestured to the wall. He turned to glare at her. “What the fuck?”
“Your concern is touching. Really.” She gave him a dry smirk because they both knew he couldn’t give a crap about her. He just wanted to keep his damn deposit.
He scowled as he approached her. Rose braced.
“You”—he stuck his finger in her face—“are not getting your deposit back, and if one more thing happens like this, I’m evicting your arse.”
Feeling her anger simmer, Rose noticed her lights flickering.
No, no, no.
“I’d appreciate it,” she said through gritted teeth, “if you got your finger out of my face. I’ll pay the damages. But I’d like you to leave. Please.” She stepped back, opening the door.
Craig crossed his arms over his chest, glee glimmering in his eyes.
He thought he’d broken through. He thought she was afraid of him.
If only he knew she was afraid for him.
“What happened?” he gestured to the wall.
Rose clambered for a lie. “A … a guy I was seeing. We argued. He did that. I threw him out. He won’t be back.”
She’d barely finished the lie when her landlord started moving toward her again. Rose tensed against the opened door.
At five six, with a slender, athletic build, Rose was dainty compared to this guy, and he wanted to make her as aware of that as possible. He stood so close, she could feel his breath on her face.
“Say the word, Rose,” he said, touching a finger to her cheek, “and I’ll protect you from arseholes like that. I might even cover the repair work on the wall, depending how good you are.”
Revulsion roiled in her gut.
Every time he paid a visit, the slug propositioned her, and every time he got a little more forceful about it. What was it about her that attracted this kind of attention? It wasn’t as though she was some stunning, sexy bombshell. Was it the faerie thing? Were guys attracted to her because of magic?
Images of the frat party, of Judd Grant flying across the room, flooded her.
Oh my God. She sucked in a breath. Had she attracted his attention because she was fae? And … maybe she had killed him after all.