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“She is the same as she was twenty minutes ago,” Caden said with a defensive tone of voice.
“You knew?” Travis accused.
“Yeah, I knew!” Caden replied. “I am one of the willing!”
Travis’s jaw dropped at that, his hands going lax at his sides in shock.
“The girls?” Sage asked, pointing to the door where the women who worked at the Sanctuary were going about their nightly activities.
“They are like me. All women found to be in need, scared and broken, that come to me under the cover of night for refuge. I am known throughout the world for giving others like me a place to stay, and no, they don’t have to serve the men here. They drink the blood of the patrons and that’s enough to help these men find their pleasure without sex, though if the women decide to lay with the man for coin, that’s their business.”
Bryn didn’t look at Declan as Niamh spoke.
“Who would think a group of vampires would live among the most righteous of King Bres’s subjects? This is why my girls question nothing, including helping to carry you lot upstairs after you passed out from the stones.”
The tension in the room was even higher than when Bryn had told her story.
“Enough. Niamh is not a threat to any of you. She is not the same as you all, but she is immortal and never had to be reborn because of a king hunting her. She is an ally, and you will all treat her like one,” Danu ordered.
No one said anything, and Bryn wondered what she could do to break the silence before Declan did that for her.
“So, you were saying we have to leave our little slice of paradise?” Declan asked, settling into the chair he’d been leaning forward in to watch the drama unfold around him.
“Yes. The wraiths will come here, and then eventually, Bres will send his army to finish off anyone who managed to survive the wraiths,” Danu replied, holding her hand out for Bryn. Giving the woman a small squeeze, Bryn felt a bolt of power run through her nerves and into her head before it settled, Danu moving back to the spot next to Sage on the couch as if she hadn’t just lightly fried Bryn’s nervous system.
It hadn’t hurt, but it was a more intense shock than when she’d touched her friends after the sandstorm.
Narrowing her eyes, Danu gave her an innocent smile, taking her teacup and putting it to her lips.
“I thought the prophecy said we needed to be here to fight the wraiths?” Bryn asked as she settled down into the chair she had vacated to follow Niamh.
“Your visions did not say that you would be fighting more than the wraiths, and that is what concerns me.” Danu touched her cheeks as she spoke.
Sage stared at a dent in the wood-grain coffee table. Pushing her nail into the wood, she tore a piece off as she was deep in thought.
“Are we all outsiders? I thought Declan was from the original founder until. . .,” Kessler asked before stopping himself.
Oops.
Bryn forgot the rest of the group wasn’t up to date on the newest revelations of Declan’s parentage and Arawn’s role in it.
“He was born in Osgar.” Mr. Rafferty sighed, knowing it was time to tell them what he had confessed to Bryn in Faerie. “His parents were killed, and I took him with me to find the rest of you and push your families to move to Ifreann. It was the best way to keep you all safe, to hide you in plain sight.”
Declan only sighed as everyone looked at him for a response. It was obvious he had already found this out about himself and may have even come to terms somewhat with the fact that the man who had raised him was not his biological father.
Though the scathing looks were still shot toward the man a few times in the meeting. It was odd to look at Mr. Rafferty, to know what he looked like in Faerie compared to the man who had adopted and protected them here in Ifreann as a man.
“Odd that they would let us in at all with all the panic and fear going on when we came here. Were any of us born here?” Jace asked.
Mr. Rafferty, Arawn, shook his head.
“I took on the persona of their founder’s grandchild and brought you in under my wing. No one resisted it too much since I was of the blood of their people... or so they thought.”
“So we have no living parents aside from Jace?” Sage asked, her voice small.
“And Bryn of course,” Danu stated as if she hadn’t just set a bomb off inside the room around her.
Danu looked at Bryn now, oblivious, or maybe not, of what she’d just said. Bryn stared hard at Danu, her eyes demanding Danu choose the next words very carefully.
