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“Got it.”
“She is a wise puss, m’wee princess. Best listen to her,” said Chance. So saying, he grabbed her and brought her in one fluid movement up against himself. This time, heedless of Trevor’s interested gaze, he kissed her long and fully. He came away to touch her nose and say softly, “Go then … and we’ll be back together before ye know it.”
Royce smiled and then brought up the dagger. “Peckering?”
“Yes, my Princess. So it shall be done, but this time we shall not use the black hole—I did not like that experience at all. I recalled something when we went through it. I remembered an old Danu spell that we can use—it will feel more like stepping through the Portal of the Monoliths.”
“Good. I wasn’t looking forward to going through the black hole again,” Royce said. She blinked, and the women were wrapped in sheets and made invisible with the Féth Fiada. “Should I tether them to each other and then to me, Peckering?”
“No. It won’t be necessary. Just float them at your back.”
Suddenly an opening appeared. Royce turned to glance once at Chance before stepping inside, the bodies of the women floating at her back. If it hadn’t been so sad, Royce thought she would have been seriously disturbed by the strangeness of all of this.
She stepped along the gravel texture of a long tunnel. She saw a small, round glow at the end and headed instinctively towards it. She kept a slow pace as she walked through the tunnel, cautious as she approached the light, which grew larger with every step she took.
“Peckering?”
“Keep going, my Princess,” said the dagger comfortingly.
She stepped out onto the grassy shore of the Lower Lake at Killarney and with great relief took a moment to breathe a long gulp of air. Then, with a heavy heart, she shifted to Dublin and placed the bodies gently on the steps of the nightclub where the young women had been abducted.
They would be found within a very short space of time. It would make the newspapers, and everyone would be on the lookout for a serial killer. They would be right to think so. In a way, that was what Pestale had become—a black-hearted serial killer.
She took a moment of silence and then turned away. Before she did anything else, she wanted to visit young David and his family.
~ Fourteen ~
AS ROYCE WATCHED him play, hidden in her invisibility, it occurred to her that young David was nearly seven years old.
How many times she had ruffled his dark, wavy hair and hugged him close. She had so enjoyed playing ‘nanny’ until his parents were able to hire Miss Gretchen.
She had been the perfect choice, and Royce remembered how she had found the older woman sitting on a bench in a park. Miss Gretchen’s children were grown and off to different parts of the world, and she was lonely and in need of something to do.
Royce had taken her by the hand and delivered her to the Hanson family. She had stayed close those first few weeks, needing to see for herself that it was working out for young David and Gretchen.
And then the Dark Fae began escaping in numbers.
Royce blinked away the day she almost lost young David. He would not have died, but he would have been paralyzed. She was glad she broke the rules. She was glad she healed him. It was the only acceptable thing to do!
She sighed as she watched him now and thought about having a child of her own. Fae were not so lucky—it was difficult for them to conceive. Would she and Chance perhaps have a baby one day? The notion made her tingle all over.
David’s father must have set up the tent for him in their fenced-in backyard. What a wonderful idea! She could see that he was totally absorbed in setting up his ‘camping’ equipment, and Royce giggled to herself.
His mother was in the kitchen. Royce planned to go in and visit with her before she went to David, but just now watching him play was all that she wanted. It reminded her of a simpler time—a time before the Dark Fae—when all seemed right with her world.
“He is a beautiful child, isn’t he?” said a horribly familiar voice in her ear.
She wrenched out of the hands that had gripped her shoulders and backed away, shocked and horrified. When in the cloaking of the Féth Fiada, Fae were invisible to humans, but not to other Fae.
Royce gasped because she couldn’t speak.
Pestale! Her mind reeled with this unexpected turn of events.
Pestale … here … with David and his family!
What had she done? She had led him right to her one weakness. How did he know she would come here? How did he know about David and his family? Did he actually know how much this human family meant to her, or had he simply followed her scent just to get to her? Perhaps he wouldn’t realize she cared about this family. Were they safely out of the equation?
He was also cloaked in the invisibility of the Féth Fiada. His face drawn in hard lines, he said, “Now then, Seelie Princess … we shall talk on my terms.”
