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“Fox. Can I ask you a question?”
“Anything.” Hopeful eyes swing my way. “Whatever you need.”
How can he be so perfect? It’s confusing the shit out of me.
“Actually, I have a few. Why did you leave Elphyne?” A wave of panic rolls through me. I’ve made guesses, and they all involve Titania, but I need to hear it from his lips. “If I was to be some kind of fated queen to end all queens for you, why leave me?”
“Notwas, Willow,” he reminds. “Youareour fated queen. Present tense.”
“You know what I mean.”
He considers something, then sits back on his seat, sprawling his legs, gifting me with the perfect pose accentuating his magnificently sculpted body. His thoughts seem far away, so I don’t think he notices the way my heart rate spikes.
“It’s a long story,” he eventually says. “But you need to hear it.”
All I can manage is a nod.
“Wait here.” He leaves me to wander the shelves and search the books. Every so often, he pulls one out, opens it, then closes it. When he returns, he sits and places an old hand-illustrated manuscript down before him. He finds a page with three females and taps them. “In the beginning, the Morrigan arose as one of the primeval triple war goddess representations of the Cauldron—the eternal Wellspring.”
“The Well.”
“Same thing.” He nods, then flips the page. Ravens and shadows surround a dark, hooded female. “About 2500 BC, her popularity with warring humanity rose to such significance that she had the power to birth seven original demigod offspring.” He flips the page. Seven darkly hideous creatures stand side by side—the Sluagh.
“They look nothing like you,” I gasp.
He shoots me a crooked smile. “Our hotness came later. But thanks for noticing.”
I snort. “My apologies, oh radiant demigod of sexiness. Do continue.”
“That’s better, pet,” he jokes, stares intensely at me, then returns to the book. “As I was saying... what was I saying? Oh, yes.” He clears his throat. “Other Sluagh were eventually created after us, but none were as potent as the first seven. They terrorized the world unchecked and became too wild to contain, each soul consumed helping them grow in power... even to the point they rivaled the Morrigan herself.”
Shit. I move to stand behind his seated form, and lean over his shoulder to read the book, now completely riveted. “What happened?”
He tenses when the length of my body presses against his arm. I didn’t mean to get so close.
Don’t move,that nagging inner voice urges me.Press closer.
Fox flips the page to an image of a cauldron tipping, and seven figures fall out of its dark liquid.
“The Cauldron was out of balance,” he explains, voice somewhat rough. “So it formed more deities.”
I lean into his space and turn the page. Ten deities are lined up, each with a name. Five are light. Five are dark.
“Danu, Dagda, Brighid, Rhiannon, Aine,” I mumble. “They’re the light. And so the Morrigan, Cernunnos, Arawn, Nicnevin, and Caber are the dark. This is fascinating. Do they still exist?”
“Oh, yes.” His lips flatten. “And they’re still at war.”
I open my mouth to ask more, but he shuts me down.
“You wanted to know why we left you,” he points out, face angling toward me. “The reason why starts here.”
“Sorry. Go on.” The next page reveals the same symbol on the Keepers of the Cauldron. “They were formed to control you?”
“In a way,” he replies. “Druidic worship allowed communication between the deities and the beings of this realm. The seven original sons were too powerful and destructive, so the Keepers and the light deities banded together and bound us for long hibernation. The Morrigan was furious. To avoid more imbalance, they appeased her by allowing us periods of controlled release where the souls we fed on were trapped in a ghostly parade called the Wild Hunt. Unable to survive without these souls, the Sluagh had to remain close to the parade. Thus, their reign of unchecked terror ended.”
Fox’s gaze grows unfocused. He no longer turns pages but instead seems to be reliving the events he relays.
“Each time they hibernated, they grew closer in the confines. A hive mentality started to form. This was the Morrigan fighting against their containment. They became stronger together, indestructible. Then, with the Morrigan’s help, a young, ambitious Unseelie noble seized control of their hibernation seals from the druids. For a time, he could summon them at will and use them any way he wanted. He even learned to distill aphrodisiac philters and elixirs from the byproduct of their feedings.”
