“I remember sitting with you on a cliff overlooking the sea,” he mused, wondering how he could have forgotten this. Forgottenher. He smiled, recalling the amber of her sparkling eyes. How despite being delicately tilted at the corners, they rounded when she jested with him. Just like they did in this life when her curiosity sparked.
This sort of thing happened on occasion. Reincarnates took on a similar experience to their previous life. Sometimes they even had a similar if not the same name. It seems that applied to faeries becoming humans as well. That he had named her warmed his heart.
“You were teasing me about a lass that day,” he murmured, wondering why this memory stood out. Until that is, Chloe replied.
“Iwasteasing you, wasn’t I?” A flicker of confusion and worry crossed her face when she figured it out. “Oh, no...the woman I teased you about liking...”
“Bloody hell,” he whispered when it came to him. “’Twas Maeve!”
“It was,” she murmured, upset. “When it seemed you didn’t remember loving me, I assumed you never would. So I waited for the inevitable. Who would you ultimately love so fiercely this time?” Her voice grew hoarse with emotion. “How would I bear coaching you how to approach her when I knew no woman would turn you away? Not when so many already wanted you.”
“So when Maeve visited the castle,” he said softly. “You thought she would be the lass.”
His heart went out to her for the sadness she must have felt. Yet he knew full well she had no reason to dread. His heart had always been hers.
Or at least it should have been.
“I had seen the affect she had on Cray and thought for sure when you two met, she would be it.” She bit her lip and groaned. “Oh, no, Cray.” She braced her forehead in her hand. “I saw it...I saw what they shared yet still...”
She trailed off, mortified.
“What is it, lass?” He wrapped his arm around her, trying to offer comfort. “What happened?”
“I didn’t realize...” She shook her head. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I was warned about my love for you. That there would be repercussions if I touched you...If I let things go too far.”
The stone in her Claddagh ring didn’t just flash with color but shined the color of his eyes as her memories became his. Everything became heartbreakingly clear as he relived lost moments. Ones magically stolen from him because of Fae magic.
“I told ye that whilst Maeve is verra nice and a catch indeed, she isnae the lass for me, Chloe,” he insisted, following her into the woodland. “Nor will she ever be.”
“Are ye quite sure?” She touched trees in passing, their trunks sparkling in her wake as she played coy. “She is lovely, and ye have not been taken with any lass yet where usually ye are by now.”
“I didnae say I wasnae taken with a lass.”
That’s when it happened.
He reached out for her hand to stop her, forgetting she was untouchable, only to feel her soft hand in his. Startled, they looked at their adjoined hands, and it came rushing back. He remembered what had been lost to him.
This had happened before.
He had placed his hand over hers in his last life.
This wasn’t the first time he had loved her.
“Och, lass,” he swore under his breath as their eyes met. Dozens of lifetimes narrowed down to that single moment. A great divide was finally crossed. “Why did ye not remind me?”
Before she could answer, he pulled her into his arms, cupped her cheek, and finally kissed her.
After that, there was little hope for them. Within moments, their love for one another blossomed into something untouchable. Something that, as true love could, swept them off their feet and consumed them. Their past infiltrated their present.
There was simply no stopping what happened between them.
They knew there would be consequences. While he tried to turn away so that she didn’t lose her immortality, in the end, he couldn’t any more than she could. They were helplessly in love and lost in their own world. Before they knew it, they found themselves where most did when they felt this strongly.
Loving each other in every sense of the word.
Though they knew it would change everything, that she would lose her immortality, she was willing. She wanted a life with him far more than being able to live forever. And him? He wanted her any way he could have her.
“That’s why I felt virginal the first time we had sex,” she murmured. “Because I was and must have sensed it. I must’ve remembered the sensation without understanding where it came from.”
