Chapter Eighteen
HE AND CHLOE remainedsilent for several moments, processing what they’d just been told. Grant had literally poofed away in a crackle and pop of flames, seemingly taking Adlin with him.
But not before they shared a few things.
“Did I hear that correctly?” Chloe finally murmured. “Whatever my former faery did to lose her immortality is directly connected to Adlin and his foster sister, Iosbail, losing their immortality in their previous life?”
“Aye,” he confirmed. “’Tis precisely what Adlin said.”
“And Grant responded by saying Adlin and Iosbail lost their immortality when they found true love,” she said. “That’s when they started aging.”
“Aye, correct.”
“And what do you make of that?” she prompted when he didn’t say anything further.
“I dinnae know.” He shook his head, lost in thought, trying to come to grips not only with what she’d shared before his elders arrived but by the sheer panic he’d felt when she vanished earlier. “All I know, and Adlin and Grant agree, is that this connects you to Adlin’s creation in another life.”
“When he was conceived at the Irish Stonehenge by the Druidess and the Celtic King?”
“That’s right.” He met her eyes. “Somehow, you, as a faery, influenced his magic, Chloe. Or, more pointedly, influenced true love.”
“Well, we all know that now, don’t we,” she said dryly. Her sad gaze settled on the fire. “Just look at what I did to you.”
While some might be furious, he was not. Did it hurt that Maeve’s heart was never truly his? Of course. But in some small way, it was freeing too. As if the veil he had sensed before was pulled back even further. That he drew ever closer to some great truth.
Though he knew better than to touch Chloe any more than he already was, nude with nothing but fur between them, he needed her eyes with his. He needed her to see his true feelings. So he tilted her chin until her gaze found his.
“What you didforme, nottome, Chloe, was satisfy my longing,” he said softly. “I loved Maeve and ‘twould have been unthinkable had she not loved me back.”
She nodded, clearly muted by overwhelming emotion.
“Truly, lass.” He searched her eyes. “You are not, nor have you ever been amonsteras you put it. I have no doubt that your reasons were pure and that you only had my best interests at heart.”
He meant that too. Hefeltit.
“I hope you’re right because it sounds like I was going somewhere that only belongs to God,” she murmured. “It sounds like I interfered where I had no right.”
“I dinnae know about that,” he murmured, more confident by the moment that his sense about this was correct. “I get the feeling ‘twasyour place, lass. That...”
“That what?” she said when he trailed off, caught by the strong certainty that washed over him.
“That ‘twas, as Grant guessed, your love for me at work,” he said softly, searching her eyes again, following the sparkle that had ignited deep within. “That whatever you did, mayhap even that you made Maeve love me, was because your love for me was so true...because you wanted only happiness for me.”
“I think that’s what Maeve was trying to tell me when I dreamt about her right before you and I met.” She sat up a little as if something had just clicked in her mind. “Before I ever traveled back to Tiernan and Julie at the Callanais Standing Stones on their adventure.”
Where before he might have leapt at any message from Maeve, now he felt a welcome sense of peace. Closure of a sort. So much so that it caught him unaware. As if, strangely enough, he had been under a spell with how deeply he’d cared about her. How intensely he had fought letting her go even in death. Suddenly, it didn't seem so natural but over the top. Too much. Why would that be, though? Then again, his magic was fluctuating, so mayhap that’s all this was.
“What was Maeve trying to tell you?” he prompted.
“What happened,” Chloe replied. “What I did.” Her eyes sparkled even more. “And what her message was for you...because I didn’t get it quite right.”
She didn’t need to say a word. He saw it in her eyes. Felt it as though Maeve were standing right here. “She told you what you now know. What you were to her.” He cupped her cheek and looked deeper, hearing her truth. Maeve’s truth. “Though only briefly, she saw you in that form but doubted her own two eyes. Then she understood upon death. She knew...”
Chloe released a shaky breath and continued when he could not.
“She knew that I had given my love for you to her,” she whispered, tears welling. “That I had loved you so much, I would give up anything so that you could be loved by her. So that your heart’s desire would be filled.”
“Why, though?” he said softly. “Why would you do such a thing?” He shook his head. “And why would Maeve have said I would find her again? That we would be together?”
