Beyond the Highland Myst(612)

"You didn't love him," Adam said flatly.

"What?" She was startled, wondering how he'd determined that so swiftly and matter-of-factly.

"You didn't love him. I've been— seen mortals in love, grieving someone they lost. You're not one."

With a faint, wry smile. Gabby conceded the point. "You're right. I wasn't crazy, head-over-heels in love with him. But I cared about him. A lot. And it still hurts."

"I'm sorry, Gabrielle."

She shrugged. "I can't say I didn't know what to expect going in. O'Callaghan women never have successful relationships. My dad left my mom when I was four. I hardly even remember him. Just a vague memory of a man with a scratchy beard and a loud, angry voice. The only reason my mom's second marriage works is because she can't see fairies and she never had any more children. Her husband has no clue that she's anything other than perfectly normal. And as long as I stay out of the picture, he never will. Gram never married. She settled for the children part of her dream. Got pregnant and didn't tell the father. It's not like ancient times when Sidhe-seers were revered and men fought for their hands. In my time, people don't believe in things they can't see. And me? I saw my first fairy, so Grain told me, when I was three years old. I pointed and smiled at it. Fortunately, it was Grain who'd taken me out in the stroller that day, because if Mom had, she wouldn't have even known what I was looking at and I probably would have been captured then. That was when they knew for sure that, though the vision skipped my mom, it hadn't skipped me. I didn't get to leave the house again until I was ten years old. It was that long before Gram was convinced I could go out without betraying myself."

Adam leaned back in his chair, watching her across the table. He'd begun this conversation with his question about why she was still a virgin, intending to turn her mind to sex and smoothly segue into seduction. But she'd ended up turning his mind away from it, toward different thoughts of her. He'd not considered what being a Sidhe-seer might mean for a twenty-first-century woman.

It was not so different from the old crone's life in the isolated forest, as he'd thought. It still meant hiding, and not just from the Fae but from her own kind too. It meant a life of never quite fitting anywhere. She was right, what man would believe her? And, assuming any did, what man would tolerate such an affront to his masculinity— being unable to protect his own?

She'd actually been making quite a valiant stab at things: building a career, dating, and keeping the Tuatha Dé oblivious to her existence.

Until he'd come along and exploded through her back door, betraying her to the worst denizens of Faery.

"When I'm immortal again. I'll fix everything for you, ka-lyrra. You'll never have to fear again."

She wrinkled her nose as if to say ‘Yeah, right’. "Speaking of which, what is your plan? If you're going to be dragging me all over the world, I think I have a right to know what we're doing."

He shook his head. "The less you know for now, the safer you are. If by some chance you're taken from me, my plan may be the only way I have of getting you back."

She shivered, paling. "You mean if the Hunters get me, don't you?"

Adam nodded. "Yes. Knowledge you don't possess can't be lifted from your mind by another of my race. Wait until we're in Scotland. I'll tell you there."

She shivered again. "Okay. But can you at least tell me where in Scotland we're going?"

"To sacred ground, where those of my race are forbidden to go. MacKeltar land. We'll be safe there."

"So I take it we're not going to try to find this Circenn Brodie person any longer?"

Adam watched her intently as he replied, "I can no longer wait for my son to resurface."

"Y-your w-what?" she sputtered, looking at him with an astonished expression.

"My son. Circenn is my son."

She sat up straight in her chair, frowning. "You mean, by a human woman? That's why he's only half-Fae? You had a child with a human woman?''

He nodded, concealing his smile behind a swallow of wine. She sounded both offended and... reluctantly fascinated. Fascinated was good, very good. Precisely what he wanted to hear.

"When? Recently?"

"Long ago, ka-lyrra."

"How long ago? And stop making me pull teeth, Adam. I answered your questions. If you expect me to answer any more of them, you'd better start talking to me."

She looked as if she were about to leap up from her chair, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him. He might have antagonized her further, to goad her into doing it for the excuse to pull her into his arms, but he was too charmed by the fact that she'd just called him "Adam." Though she'd said his name on other occasions, this was the first time she'd used it so casually in conversation. He'd been waiting for it to happen. It was a milestone, revealing a deepening acceptance of him. He was no fool; he knew he'd been an "it" to her at first. Then the sin siriche du, or the blackest fairy, then his full name. Adam Black.