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“We had more hope that you wouldn’t skin us alive,” Alasdair mused, quirking the corner of his lip up. His eyes then took a lingering stroll down my body again. “Though, I wouldn’t mind if you were the one skinning me.”
Disgust raked through me, causing a shiver. Strutting past him, I lined myself up with Cullen. “What are we going to do when we get to this man?”
“A long time ago, he was one of our closest friends. A conflict happened between him and his twin that caused him to give into his darkness.”
“His twin? There’s someone else we could ask instead?” A new hope blossomed in my chest.
“Um, no. His twin died,” he kept his voice down. “The others don’t know, so please don’t repeat it. Muir was the kindest of us all.”
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized. “Does Cian know of his brother?”
“I’m not sure, but I would just leave that off the table too. Cian chose hatred and thrives in his betrayal. We need to go to him without him knowing of our plans or the deaths of his loved ones.”
“What should I pretend to be? Having a human in your company might not be the best plan to sell whatever story you come up with.” Fear of this stranger kept spiking the more they mentioned about him.
“You don’t smell human,” he commented. “Áine and Morrigan’s magic have mixed inside of you, making you smell like one of us.”
“Really?” I lifted my arms to take a bigger whiff of myself.
He smiled in humor of it. “Really, you do. I figured we could say you’re our healer. It would be believable with your role as a woman in our society. It’s something he wouldn’t question with his old-fashioned beliefs.”
“A healer? Would I need to do anything?”
“Not necessarily. You’d only be needed if we were injured, and we won’t be. It’s a window that will allow us enough time to figure out what Áine wanted me to find in her library.”
“What was it that you have to get?” I blinked slowly as we walked over the black ground. Some ash stirred from below our feet.
“She said the secret to unlocking our true forms would be in there. If we’re going to stand against Morrigan and her armies, we need to be able to call upon our most powerful forms.”
“When you say forms, do you mean something other than what I see you as now?”I craned my neck to view his face better.
“Yes. All fae folk have a beastly form that manifests when we reach around five hundred years of age. Sadly, we’re centuries away from that, and our world will be destroyed now if we don’t do something to trigger ours sooner.”
“How old are you guys?” It was probably rude of me to ask, but they looked just a little older than me.
“We’re all a few decades away from two hundred years old.”
“Are you young for your kind?”
Cullen cut me a devilish grin. “In comparison to your people, we are around twenty. Old enough to be an adult, but young enough not to be seen as a leader. With our parents dying, we’re all that’s left to defend our people, and they struggle allowing such young princes to become kings of their courts. There’s nothing they can do about us gaining our crowns, but I would like to feel like I earned their respect to lead them.”
“I can understand that almost completely,” I said while rubbing the outside of my arms.
“How so?” he asked.
“Áine took me when I was a baby to raise me away from the castle in hopes Morrigan would forget my existence. It all began at my arrival party, and all the fairies came to bestow different gifts. All but one were invited to do so. Morrigan had fallen into some darker magic, causing no one to want her present. According to the legend of her beginning, she had to sacrifice a dozen of the purest souls to enhance herself into what she became.”
“Purest? You don’t mean…”
“Babes, the youngest she could find. No one wanted her near their families, but their shunning made her bitter. She showed up at my birth party and placed a curse on me that she’d put me into an eternal slumber when I came of age by pricking my finger. Áine took me away with the permission of my parents to raise me in the forest as a commoner. That way, if Morrigan ever stumbled upon me, I wouldn’t know who I truly was for her to never find out.”
“So how do you know all of this now?” He moved a large branch that was dead for me to maneuver around easier. I could tell the other three were listening in to what I had to say to their friend.
“A week before my birthday, Áine took me back to the castle and told me the truth of my life. I met my parents as my parents for the first time that day instead of the distant uncle and aunt I thought them to be. When I worried over Prince Philip’s place in my life, I learned that he was a prince. Our union was supported, but that didn’t mean I was ready to become a queen overnight. I didn’t know the first thing about leading a kingdom.”
“How did you meet Philip?” he challenged me to answer for a reason I wasn’t sure about.
“He would come work Áine’s fields in the summer seasons. He was the only person that was close to my age that Áine let me be around. I’d be doing the housework while he plowed the fields and planted the seeds. My window in the kitchen overlooked his place. It was no secret to Áine that I had a crush on him. Over a few summers spent together, I knew he was my soulmate.”
