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“Yeah.”
He felt her sadness, that these new realities would probably make it impossible for her to ever have a simple life.
“What do you want most?” he asked, heading the subject in a slightly different direction.
At that, she chuckled. “I’m a pretty boring person. I just want what I think most women want: a home, a family, a man to love.” Her gaze skittered up to his face then fell away. She paddled in a circle.
“Yet here you are in extraordinary circumstances, the daughter of an extremely powerful couple.”
Facing him once more, she frowned. “Seth, for that reason alone, because of my parentage, how could I ever have a normal life? Won’t I be blamed for their evil? Sometimes when I think of who they are and all the people who have died because of their creation of wraith-pairs, I feel overwhelmed with guilt. I mean, how could you even consider being connected with me?”
The question surprised him, but he took his time answering. Finally, he said, “Because I don’t think of you as connected to either Margetta or Gustav. You’ve been as much a victim as any of those who have died and you’ve escaped death at your mother’s hands more than once, I’m sure of that. When Quinlan and Batya told me about their journey to Ferrenden Peace, I know Margetta reached a point where she intended to destroy you. That’s true, isn’t it, that she tried to kill you?”
“That’s exactly what happened. I was convinced I was going to die.”
“Did Margetta ever show you kindness when you were a child?”
“She was never around, not that I can recall.”
He spoke stridently, wanting her to know how much he believed what he would say next. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re the daughter of Genevieve, the troll. You have no other parents than her.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “Thank you for that. I live with such terrible shame about who my mother is. But you’re right. She was never my mother, just my captor.” She nodded several times in succession. “But what of you? Who is your family now?”
“My realm.” He’d made the statement so quickly that until this moment, he’d never understood just how much he thought of his realm as his family.
“You’ve lived a kind of enforced solitude over the centuries. But what did you do for that first hundred years? Were you a Guardsman? Did you ever fall in love?”
He debated how much to tell her, but in the end decided not to hold anything back. “A long time ago, before I reached mastyr status, I fell hard for a woman named Kristen. But it wasn’t until I’d already given my heart that I found out she’d been working for the current Mastyr of Walvashorr, a vampire by the name of Gryffith. Apparently, he’d received an advance warning about my forthcoming mastyr power and decided he wanted me dead.”
“Sweet Goddess, what happened?”
He refused to reveal the specifics of what had turned into a bloody mess of a fight. Summoning up, he said, “Gryffith and a couple of his friends laid a trap for me and we fought. But somehow the situation launched my mastyr calling and I got the upper hand over them all. The problem was that Kristen showed up toward the end and in an effort save Gryffith, the man she really loved, she got caught in the cross-fire and died. It was a terrible scandal at the time. I was exonerated before the Sidhe Council and made Mastyr of Walvashorr not long after.”
“What happened to Gryffith?”
“He died in prison two years later.”
Seth had never felt so free sharing his past, but he had to admit that Lorelei’s empathy had made it possible. She’d known suffering as well.
In many ways, Lorelei’s current situation felt similar to his own journey, that while she’d been ready to embrace a more normal life, she’d been thrust into extraordinary power, just as he had all those years ago. In addition, he thought it likely that his presence in her life had ignited her blood rose ability. But it was also clear that if he continued on this path with her, his life would change as well. He’d be bonded to a blood rose and become regis to the shifter population in his realm, something he’d never believed possible.
But he needed to be honest with her. “I’m not sure I’m capable of love.
”
She searched his eyes. “That makes sense given all that you’ve been through, but I still can’t believe Kristen could have done that to you, or to anyone. I’m appalled.”
He realized something about Lorelei in that moment. She truly didn’t know herself. He smiled, thinking it felt damn good to have a champion in his life.
“Hey, why are you smiling suddenly, because I don’t find anything amusing about that woman’s betrayal.”
“It’s not that. I’m smiling because it’s absurd for you to be worrying about your parentage, since you’ve just proved Genevieve’s influence all over again. If you’d had even the smallest part of Margetta’s character living inside you, I believe you would have applauded Kristen’s conduct, instead of condemning it.”
Her lips curved and her dark eyes sparkled. “Seth, did you just offer me a compliment?”
“Yes, but let me state it plainly. You’re a good woman and I value that more than I can say. But I’ve spent enough of our two hours together talking about me, so why don’t you tell me about Batya’s free clinic in Lebanon.”
Lorelei still floated, knees up, as she told him with many smiles what it was like to work with such a talented artist and a woman who gave herself so selflessly to the entire ex-patriot realm community living in Tennessee.
