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Chapter One
FRANKIE SAT ON the grassy edge of a precipice overlooking a green patchwork valley. She had her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped tightly around them. At the moment, her life was a bit of a mess.
As she looked over the edge of the sharp cliff, it occurred to her that she was at the edge all right, physically, mentally, emotionally.
This had always been one of her favorite places in the Grampian Mountains of Scotland, overlooking the neat green valley below.
The sky was blue but neat shapes of billowing clouds gently made their journey. They felt so near, almost near enough to reach out and touch. She smiled to herself before releasing a long sigh. A hawk flew by, dove and came up with something in its mouth and Frankie thought how once she had wondered what it would be like to swoop and sail in the air on her own power.
So much was happening to her and in such quick succession, that it had all been more than a little difficult to handle, but she did. She could, because she had been handling everything anyone had ever thrown at her since she was eleven years old and lost her first adoptive father, and then her mother. Those days in Ireland seemed so far away.
However, what was happening now—in particular, what had happened to her now, was way different than anything she had ever experienced before.
She had never wanted to be defined by her physical attributes, but there was no getting away from this. She had been sick with apprehension, and confusion. How was she going to handle what she had become?
She had always known she would never be normal—never be like other Fae. After all, she had always been a Fios and was able to see the Fae. She was able to shield herself from most Fae Magic, but she was also Daoine Fae, the highest caste of Fae. How confusing was that? And then to top that was the fact that her dear da, her biological father was respected above most even though he was not actual royalty. He was known to all, which made taking on a low profile and hiding herself in a corner, impossible. Not that it was her style, it wasn’t.
It had been a shock to learn that the man she had known growing up in Ireland, the man she had mourned as her father, had not been her ‘real’ father. Her Fios mother had kept that secret hidden.
It had been a thrill to discover that Deimne the Daoine Sluagh was her da. He was ultra magnificent, haughty, but very good at it. Picturing him, she smiled wide and then again sagged into a sigh.
She had not realized what having him as her father would mean. It had never occurred to her that all things might one day change.
Very little of her human was left.
Daoine Fae was who she was. Fios had quietly taken a backseat, but she was pleased to find that she still had a very human heart. Her heart beat in a Fae body, and with that heart, the human in her brain still whispered human philosophies so very unlike Fae philosophy. Fae lived forever and viewed the world from a different vantage point. She was torn between the two.
Physical changes had rushed through her, overtaken her in sudden sweeps, over the last few weeks. The first change had been to her hair color.
She awoke one morning and looked in the mirror to find that her rich gold streaked auburn hair was pitch black and that the gold streaks were nearly platinum.
What was she going to tell her friends? That had been her first thought after the initial shock. Her friends admiring her new ‘do’ believed she had dyed her hair to achieve the new ‘look’. Why—why had her hair turned black?
Her eyes changed as well shortly after that. It wasn’t only the fact that they became completely Fae, an iridescent shade of hazel, but the sharpness of her ability to see long distance had increased. Fae eyes stared back at her when she looked in the mirror now. Her da had said that from what he could remember, she had taken his mother’s coloring. That had pleased and saddened her, for she saw so little of her mother in her looks now.
Glamour—human Glamour was something she wore now all the time. She had expected that her eyes would change as she reached her majority. She had known the Fae changes would come. What she hadn’t known, what she hadn’t expected, was the fact that something dark inside of her had grown as well and now competed for a voice. Although she had managed to keep that dark power caged and suppressed, she knew it had strengthened over the last six years and wanted out.
When she peered at herself in a mirror and brushed her long black hair she noted the white gold streaking its long waves, it was as though a stranger looked back at her.
She had celebrated her eighteenth birthday with her dear ones at her side. Her father, Deimne, Trevor of Lugh, and his mate, her beloved mentor and closest friend in all the world, Jazmine Decker.
She had reached a Fae milestone and her body had changed seemingly overnight as a living witness to what she actually was—what she actually had become, and human seemed so very non-existent in her these days. Human—being human was a distant dream.
With her human majority of eighteen, she had attained the height and most of the attributes she would always have as an immortal being. She was five foot six, and looked older than eighteen, but she would continue to show some aging until she was twenty-five. She already felt twenty-five. After all she experienced, how could she not?
Life had become so much more complicated than it had been only months before.
Suddenly she was inundated with secrets about herself she had to keep well hidden, if she was going to be able to maintain the wonderful human friendships she had attained over the last six years.
She thought of her da and how thrilled he had been with her changes. But then he was always thrilled with her.
He had lived thousands upon thousands of years, eons, while she had only eighteen to her name, and wondered how it was possible to live so long.
Her thoughts wandered aimless in her head, but she realized she was not unhappy, quite the opposite. Life with Jazz and Trevor and her da had been completely beautiful, exciting, and full of love. She didn’t know what she would have done without their support, especially during the recent changes she had gone through, especially this last painful transition.
Her da had been ecstatic about this latest transition, but it was the one thing she
was having the most difficulty dealing with. She wished it had not happened to her and how could she confide in him about that? She couldn’t, it would hurt him. He would see it as a rejection. Jazz understood.
They were all spending the summer in Scotland, doing a tour of the Highlands as this would be their last year living together in Charleston, SC.
She would be off to study at Trinity in Dublin, come the fall. Their home in Charleston would remain just that, their home, their refuge. She knew that Trevor and Jazz had decided it was time for Jazz to give up her job as a marine biologist and spend her days with Trevor in Faery, the Isle of Tir.
Jazz was like that. She knew Trevor had given up his duties on the New Council that the Queen had formed. It would give Jazz the human life, Trevor knew she needed, a human life that had been cut short. Now Jazz felt it was her turn to do the same for him.
Life was continuing to change so fast.
Suddenly, she got to her feet. She felt a shiver of anticipation travel through her body.
As always Frankie felt him, before she saw him.
She didn’t know how it was, but from the start, they shared a connection she had never been able to explain to herself.
She turned, as he came into view. She felt her entire body tremble with pleasure as a smile flittered over her face. Why did he have such an affect on her?
He had always hovered about her life.
He had always stood back, and yet, she knew he was a friend, one that would never desert her. Her father had forbidden him her company, but Frankie always had a mind all her own, and she had not given him up. How could she? He seemed to be a part of who she really was.
She needed him. He had been there for her in these last six years; in and out, never intruding, never taking, and only giving little bits of wisdom. He was bolstering her when she was down, always encouraging her to go to Jazz with her problems. He stood strong like an unseen protector.
Softly she said, “Graely.”
She was always mesmerized by his height, by his breath and style. His massive chest with the Celtic cross tattooed near his left shoulder and a band of Celtic knots around his biceps.
