“Yes, it is what I want.” Silently, however, she asked herself, Right? Isn’t that what I want? A part of her whispered, No, you want to stay and help fight against the Dark Fae. It is in your blood.
“Then I suggest, little Fios, you get to work and find the Orb with your ‘sounder’ ability,” he said authoritatively.
She pushed at him with all her might, but he didn’t budge, standing there like a huge, sculptured boulder, and she said agitatedly, “Oohh!”
“I have annoyed you. Why?” he asked on a frown.
“You can’t help it—you are what you are,” she said on a heavy sigh.
“Well, of course I am. You have a knack for stating the obvious, Jazmine Decker.”
She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t think of him. Instead, she would do what her instincts told her she could do. Only once had she been put to the test. Her mother had a small pendent, handed down from mother to daughter for centuries. Oddly enough, the story went that it had been a gift from the Queen of the Seelie Fae, Aaibhe, for a service her ancestor had done.
Her mother had hidden it, and Jazz had located it with her ‘sounder’ talent, over and over again. She touched the locket now, but before she could proceed, Trevor moved in so fast the air rushed around her like a small wind. He took the locket in his hand and held it. “This … belongs to my queen. It is not only a Fae artifact, it is the queen’s loicéad. It holds very unique magical properties. What are you doing with it?”
She slapped his hand away. “It was given to one of our ancestors by your queen!”
“Why?”
“I don’t like your tone,” she answered, glaring at him. Didn’t he believe her? Did he think it had been stolen? Like anyone could steal something from the queen! Ha.
“You don’t like my tone?” he returned, looking both annoyed and perplexed. He shook his very handsome head while she studied him, but finally he grimaced and asked, “Very well, then, do you know how to use it, Fios? Because I do.”
“Well, not sure. The family story was that we could call on the queen if an injustice against one of us was being committed. That is all I know.” She shrugged. “I just wear it because it’s pretty, and I used to think maybe it would bring me good luck.” She looked around. “Not so sure about that anymore.”
“Why did you think it would bring you good luck?” he asked, looking at her with obvious curiosity.
She thought for a moment. Her mother had given it to her the day of the accident, telling her to always wear it, as though she knew something was coming …
She had been thrown clear and lived. Luck was a double-edged sword. She lived, but she lost them. She returned her gaze to his golden eyes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, then, what does this tell you, Jazmine Decker?” Trevor asked with a growing smile.
“I don’t know, but I am certain from the look on your face that you mean to tell me.”
“It tells you, little Fios, that we have found our way home—I think.”
~ Five ~
HORDLY STOOD AT the edge of the monoliths that hovered over the Middle Lake of Killarney. He was confused and looking for answers. What had gone wrong? Why had the dolmens been sucked into the past with him? Why had he been sucked into the past? And why the year 1816? Was it significant or just an accident of fate?
Dark Fae could not touch Seelie Fae relics. Nor could they successfully command them, but he and his brothers were not just Dark Fae. They had their father’s Seelie essence. They each represented a different Royal House, and each had precious gifts. However, because the Dark King had used dark magic and the preserved genes of beings extinct in the Seelie’s beloved Danu when creating his sons, they were neither all Unseelie nor all Seelie. Thus, Seelie artifacts never reacted quite as they were supposed to when he or his brothers tried to use them. Was that the reason he had been sent back to this time period?
He had been careful not to touch the Orb when he used the incantation, hoping it would not feel or sense the Unseelie in him. He had been specific in the use of that incantation, limiting it only to the opening of the portal, a portal that Gais had used to travel to Killarney. Gais had been a Seelie Fae, and it had worked for him, but it had also worked for his brother Pestale.
Why then not for him? Was he darker—less Seelie than Pestale? Was he readily recognizable as Unseelie by the Orb?
Without the Wheel of Being, the Dark King had needed more than his own and Morrigu’s essence to create true Fae, so he had implemented the use of the darkest magic he could find and combined it with the science he had perfected. Thus, the first of his sons, Pestale, had been created. Later, with the others, he had altered the method so that none were exactly alike.
Hordly knew Pestale had been favored in his father’s eyes. He had stopped caring about that centuries ago. However, now it seemed it was Graely that held the Dark King’s true affection. This was unacceptable. How could his father hold Graely in greater affection? Graely was a stupid, soft-natured dolt!
The Dark King had made small alterations when he had finally created Hordly, Graely, and then Donwith, now dead by a Milesian’s hands. For Hordly, that alteration had given him fangs, but he liked that. He liked the feel of ripping something apart …
But all that didn’t matter. Soon, they would take over the universe. Their father didn’t care. He was off with his whore … his Crystal … evolving into pure energy.
He and his brothers had a secret they could use as a weapon against the Seelie Fae: the fact that they had Seelie inside them waiting to be utilized.
The Seelie Royal had looked at him as though he were nothing more than an evil being, and that angered him.