by S. Young
“But you never sensed my emotions.”
“I did,” he confessed, glancing away from her. “I sensed when you wanted me to. I sensed your admiration. I sensed your betrayal when you spoke with your parents. And I sensed your pain after you dream-walked me.”
“Is that when you knew … that we were mates?”
Fionn shook his head. “Like I said before, I knew after the fight with Kiyo. My feelings for you were taking over my common sense. I felt possessive, protective … and”—his green eyes darkened with arousal—“I couldn’t control my desire for you. Not even a little. It’s beyond my control. I lived on Faerie long enough to recognize the signs.”
Goose bumps prickled over Rose’s skin and rubbed her upper arms, grateful for the jacket that concealed her body’s reaction to his words.
“Once I’m inside you, the mating bond will snap into place permanently. You’ll carry my scent as I will carry yours so everyone will know we belong to each other.”
Rose exhaled at his provocative words, eyeing him incredulously as he stared at her mouth. “Once? You think that’s going to happen between us when you’re planning to leave me behind?”
“Nothing should last forever, mo chroí. Why should our connection be the same? Why don’t we just enjoy it while we can?”
Hurt, aroused, and confused, Rose backed away from him toward the forest. “Because we’ve been given the gift of forever. We don’t have to just enjoy it while we can. That’s your choice. Not mine.”
Fionn shook his head. “Eternity isn’t a gift, Rose. You’ll realize that soon enough.”
“Eternity wasn’t a gift for you because you’ve spent the last three centuries without me,” Rose responded boldly.
His head jerked back, like she’d hit him.
“Forever for us might be a week, a few months, a year, or centuries … But it should be up to fate to decide that, Fionn. Not you and your thirst for vengeance.”
Leaving him stone-faced on the edge of the faerie pools, Rose stalked back through the forest. She wanted some distance to collect her thoughts, but Fionn couldn’t even give her that.
Within seconds he was striding by her side, lost in thoughts she hoped were now muddled by her honesty. Thoughts that may still be on a path to revenge, but hopefully that path was now blocked by the obstacle of their bond.
29
Fionn didn’t ask her for An Breitheamh that day.
Or the next.
Instead, they fell into a companionable existence with Fionn offering to train her further in her abilities. This included using the castle as they had La Sagrada Familia. They didn’t discuss much else, falling safely into a comfortable neutral zone.
However, the rain returned the following day in torrential sheets of blistering cold, pounding droplets. Rose woke late, tired from expending her energy on traveling all over the castle grounds yesterday. Fionn had been trying to teach her to fight using the ability.
It had been more than a little therapeutic to battle with him.
After finding breakfast muffins that Fionn had “popped” in, Rose meandered through the castle in search of him, a coffee cup in hand. Upon questioning him about his staff, Fionn told her he hadn’t gotten around to hiring new staff. The conversation made him brood, so Rose didn’t push the subject.
Rose wasn’t happy to be cooped up at the castle indefinitely. She was slowly falling in love with An Caomhnóir. But it was becoming clear that Rose hadn’t been on the move since college because she was searching for something.
Rose was a nomad.
It was just who she was.
Thankfully, that meant staying on the move for the rest of her life was less likely to affect her happiness.
Finding Fionn in the main hall, sitting on the large L-shaped couch reading a leather-bound book, Rose quietly made her way over to him. He glanced up from the page.
“Good morning.”
“Hi.” She settled on the adjacent two-seater sofa, curling her legs under her. They locked eyes as she brought her coffee cup to her lips, and Rose attempted to ignore the flutter in her stomach.
Her attraction to him was not going to dissipate soon.
The fires blazed at either side of the room, and yet Rose shivered.
A little smile quirked the corner of Fionn’s mouth. A cocky expression told her he knew she wasn’t shivering because she was cold.
Shooting him a glare, she huffed, “Stop it.”
Fionn grinned. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m just sitting here, reading my book.”
“You’ve lived for three centuries. Haven’t you read all the books by now?”
He shook his head, still smiling.
Rose hated that she loved she could make him smile.
Looking from his face to his book before she did something impulsive, she studied the title. The illustrative wrap that had been covering the hardback was abandoned on the couch at Fionn’s side.
“A History of the Middle East?”
Lowering the book, her companion shrugged.
“Fionn, you’ve been around for three centuries. Don’t you know more about history than most people?”
“I missed over 1800 years of history while I was under that druid spell, Rose. And even living the last few centuries, I couldn’t keep up with everything. You live that long, information battles for priority in your mind. Facts and memories are pushed out in favor of something your brain deems more important. This is the third time I’ve read this book.”
Something occurred to Rose that hadn’t before. “Does it bother you? I mean, apart from the obvious painful loss of personal connections … does it bother you that you should have been around for 1800 years of history and you were denied it?”
The air around him grew colder. “How honest do you want me to be?”
“I always want you to be a hundred percent honest with me. No matter what.”
“Then no. Apart from being denied the right to watch my children grow, I’m grateful I haven’t lived for over two thousand years. The spell left me to my dreams but not once did I feel the passing of time while I slumbered. Three centuries is long enough to be alive, Rose. Time has a way of revealing man’s inability to learn from his mistakes. It’s frustrating to watch an entire species repeat its follies over and over. Time pummels the hopeful and strengthens the cynic. Immortality eventually isolates you. All the things that make you human are lost.”
“Like what?”
“The beauty in fragility. The passion of inevitability. The gratitude for time.”
Worry pierced Rose’s soul. Would she, over time, lose everything that made her human? Wasn’t she already? Already she was fearless in many ways. But in others, she wasn’t. She eyed him thoughtfully. “You’re still human, Fionn.”
He glowered. “What makes you say that?”
She sighed, a little wearily. “Vengeance is a preoccupation of man.”
“What do you think the spell that created you is, Rose?” Fionn asked casually, despite the telltale ticking of the muscle in his jaw. “Aine had her revenge on the human race for muddling up her perfect little world.”
“That wasn’t revenge. You said it yourself—it was wickedness. The boredom of immortality.”
“And what about Niamh?”
“What about Niamh?”
Fionn rubbed a hand over his jaw, the bristle of his stubble sounding loud in the cavernous space. Rose fought the urge to go over and touch him.
“I have reason to believe Niamh is my descendant.”
That announcement pulled Rose’s focus. “What?”
“There’s no evidence as Bran continues to remind me. Her name is Farren, which is the modern name for Ó Faracháin. That was my clan name. Her family dates back to a time when they were Ó Faracháin. They were also rumored to have connections to the mythical Rí Mac Tíre.”
Wow.
Now she understood his interaction w
ith Niamh back in Munich. And why he said she had nothing to fear from him. Fionn wouldn’t kill someone of his own blood.
“I feel it in my gut, Rose. Niamh is my descendant. And it’s something Aine would do to me.” He curled his lip in bitterness. “Knowing I couldn’t raise a hand to my own. So no, revenge is not just the purview of humans.”
A subject Rose had been wary of pressing pushed at her, urging her to. Feeling brave, she said, “You said she made you her …” She couldn’t quite bring herself to say the word.
“Whore.” Fionn’s tone was brutally cold.
Rose nodded.
“Aye, she did.”
As she observed the large, powerful figure lounging on the couch, her entire being ached for him. “It’s difficult for anyone to feel powerless and used. To happen to someone who led armies … I’m sorry, Fionn.”
“Man, woman, child, poet, farmer, or king … it doesn’t matter who you are, Rose. It fucks with your mind all the same.”
“Have you ever spoken to anyone about it?”
“A therapist?” A cynical smirk ghosted his lips.
“No. A friend.”
He sighed. “There’s nothing to say. I made peace with that a long time ago.”
“Did you?” she pressed, dangerously. “You’re still willing to … I mean, you’re still going after revenge.”
“Not for that. Yes, the bitch violated me, and yes, it fucked with my mind that my body enjoyed it while my spirit fought not to crumble under self-hatred and fury. But why do you think she made me fae, Rose? Because she couldn’t fucking break me. She couldn’t twist me up inside and make me love her. Not romantic love. Not the love of mates. But the sycophantic love that she wanted from every one of her subjects.
“She pretended she liked the challenge of any being who stood up to her, but it wasn’t that. She liked breaking people.” His eyes were no longer dead. They blazed. “I wouldn’t give that to her. So she made me the thing I hated most. And because of it, I lost the people I loved most. That’s why I demand vengeance.”
Considering this, Rose felt a complex mix of emotions take over, nothing new when it came to her feelings for Fionn. She admired him for his strength, for the beauty of his spirit that refused to be broken by what amounted to sexual slavery. Yet, it frustrated the hell out of her that someone who could stay so true to himself during such a horrific time couldn’t see that he was now letting Aine win by giving up a second chance at happiness.
“You are not them. You are not her. You may be of the same species, but for Christ’s sake, Fionn, Martin Luther King Jr. and Adolf Hitler were too. They hardly belong in the same sentence together, though, do they? It’s not what you are that makes you ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ Your intentions and your actions define you, something someone as old as you should know by now.
“Do you think because I’m fae that I’m repulsive and wicked?”
“Rose.” His tone was a warning.
“Do you? Because I don’t think I am. I enjoy being powerful but not because I want to crush people beneath the might of it. I like the freedom in it. I like the magic. The possibilities. The world is so much different from what I expected. It’s ancient and yet new, mystical and even more mysterious than I ever imagined. And I’m a part of that now. Just like you.
“Your intentions toward me were wicked.” Tears glittered in her eyes as she watched his features harden with … anger? Remorse? It was difficult to tell. “But what matters is your ability to change your mind and do the right thing. Before I knew the truth about you, I saw you as this otherworldly, noble being who made me feel exhilarated and safe at the same time.
“And despite your plans for vengeance, I still see you that way. It’s who you are deep down. You’re just too stubborn to see it.”
As soon as the last word was out of her mouth, Fionn stood and strode out of the room. Without a backward glance.
The tears in Rose’s eyes spilled over with her next blink.
As much as Fionn craved Rose’s company—and craved was the only word for it because his entire being lit up as soon as she ventured into his vicinity—he needed space.
She was prodding at old wounds and picking apart his reasons for going after Aine, muddling his brain as she forced ideas about who he was onto him.
Rose was confused. The mating bond was making her feel nonsense things about him.
If there was a corner of his icy soul that warmed under the glow of her impression of him, Fionn did his best to ignore it.
For all the rooms in the castle, Fionn’s bedroom was his sanctuary. It had a spectacular view of the sea and was filled with his favorite books. Books were one of the best inventions of the modern world. He’d learned to read as quickly as he’d learned English. Then he’d learned French and German and Spanish and Latin, and he’d learned to read in all those languages too. There was much about the world he realized he’d miss when he returned to Faerie. And that astonished him.
Throwing a hand out toward the fireplace, the wood crackled to life with flame.
Slumping down on his large, custom-made bed, Fionn stared at the flames. He should push Rose harder for An Breitheamh. The days were passing them by. And her hold on him was growing more dangerous.
What had been at the start an offering of insight into his mind to manipulate her had morphed into something else.
Fionn told this woman things he’d never spoken to another soul.
Squeezing his eyes closed, Fionn flopped back on the bed and tried to settle his mind. To focus it. To regroup. Instead, slumber seductively whispered an offer of reprieve in his ear.
Fionn slid his legs off the bed, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared unseeingly at the wall. The queen’s palace in Solas, the capital city of Samhradh, the Day Lands, was awe-inspiring. Upon his arrival on Faerie, Fionn did not know what repulsed him more: being brought here as a human slave, or finding beauty in the alien world.
Samhradh Palace was a towering building, with turrets and spires that stretched so far into the sky, they seemed to disappear into it. Moreover, it sparkled like a jewel. All over. The buildings here had window coverings they called gleamings, an opaque material that allowed you to see from the inside out. The palace appeared made entirely of shattered pieces of gleaming, winking and glittering in the sun. The interior walls sparkled beneath the balls of light that floated near the ceilings.
Fire was not required on Faerie as a source of light.
They had their terrible magic for such things.
“You’re brooding.”
Her voice was like the lash of a whip on his back.
“What do you have to brood about?”
Fionn glanced over his shoulder at the naked Fae Queen. Aine was strikingly beautiful. In fact, beautiful seemed too little a word for her. Luminescent. Golden. Golden hair, golden eyes, golden skin, small waist, long, slender legs, rounded hips, and even rounder, lush breasts.
She laid casually sprawled, one knee bent, one leg stretched out in front of her, her upper body raised as she leaned back on her elbows. Her golden eyes stared intensely into his.
Fionn despised her.
With every fiber of his being, he despised Aine, Queen of the Fae.
“Is it because of the girl I killed today? She and her sister tried to escape the noblewoman they belong to. I spared her sister, though. I can be benevolent, Fionn. However, if I want to strike the right balance of fear and respect from my people, I must make difficult decisions.”
Fionn was unable to understand the language on Faerie. It was unintelligible to humans. But the fae picked up human languages quickly and had adopted his people’s language. He wished they hadn’t. He wished he couldn’t understand, so he didn’t have to converse with the bitch. Rolling his eyes, he turned to stare at the wall again, preferring the view.
“Funny that you killed the sister with the red hair and spared the dark-haired sister. According to their own reports, the dark-haired girl was the instig
ator.”
He felt her touch on his back, her finger trailing the pattern of an A on his skin. “You know why, sweet love. Must we verbalize it? It makes me seem so petty.”
“You killed her because she looked like Aoibhinn.”
Her touch disappeared and he heard her huff of annoyance. “Must you say that name?”
“I will never love you, Aine.” Fionn stood, whirling to face her, cold hatred like ice in his veins. “So why don’t you just kill me now?”
She smiled up him. A sweet, innocent smile that belied her wickedness. “Because I enjoy you. I enjoy the challenge of breaking you.”
“It’s been six years. If you haven’t broken me yet … you never will.”
Aine laughed, a delightful, airy, tinkling noise. Then she vanished before reappearing across the room where she kept a never-ending cup of pale golden liquid that bubbled on the tongue. As she took a sip, a golden dress, like liquid metal, covered her body. She eyed him with desire and malice. “Oh, Fionn, so naive. If it takes me centuries, so be it. But I will break you.”
“Never.”
She laughed again, throwing her head back so her hair shimmered like sunlit water down her back. Then she flicked out a hand and Lir, the captain of the guard, appeared.
Fionn tensed.
Lir was a sadistic fae who had a liking for rape. Man, woman, or child, the bastard didn’t seem to have a preference. Not only had he killed Conall’s wolf companion, he’d attempted to attack Fionn, only stopping because Aine appeared and brutally reprimanded him.
Had she changed her mind?
The Faerie Queen smirked, as if she could read his mind. “Not you, Fionn. I’d never hurt you that way. There are other ways to break you.”
His heart beat incredibly fast, as though it knew something he did not. A glove appeared in Lir’s hand, seconds before a pale silvery dagger rested in that glove.
An Breitheamh.
Fionn’s pure iron dagger. The one he’d killed the fae prince with. Fionn tried to make sense of it. Somewhere, deep in his subconscious, he knew this moment had started as a memory … But this, Lir being here with the dagger, that didn’t happen.