“Pot, meet kettle.”
“True. Maybe it’s what we are. Because we’re not supposed to be here in this world.”
He grunted.
“If I finish my sentence, will you tell me how it’s possible a man who was once human is now fae?”
Fionn seemed to hesitate but then nodded.
Satisfied, Rose continued, “I focused on gymnastics to distract me from the feeling I’d had my whole life. The feeling that some piece of me was missing. When I discovered I was adopted, I thought that was the reason. Confused, thrown off course, I quit gymnastics. But the feeling never went away. Not until last night.”
Fionn frowned. “When the spell broke?”
“Exactly.”
They were quiet a moment as they drove. Rose studied him surreptitiously but somehow knew even as she did it, he was aware of her study.
His head brushed the roof of the car. He’d pushed the driver’s seat back as far as it could go, and he’d dumped his coat in the back seat along with his garment bag. White shirtsleeves had been rolled up to his elbows revealing thick, muscular forearms with veins and a dusting of fair hair across them.
His waistcoat was buttoned down a strong, flat stomach, and his long, big-knuckled fingers flexed around the steering wheel now and then. He wore a chunky, Celtic-looking silver ring on the middle finger of his left hand.
Rose felt an unwelcome flip of attraction low in her belly, and not for the first time.
Every second she stared at him, she found something new to like.
Like the hard, angular edge of his jawline beneath his stubble and the contrasting softness of his lower lip. He had an exaggerated curve in the middle of his bottom lip that made a woman want to trace it with her tongue.
Fuck.
Rose looked away and immediately felt him studying her in return.
She could not develop an attraction to her would-be mentor.
“Was that your only question?”
She turned back to him, saw the coolness in his startlingly beautiful eyes before he looked back at the road, and sighed at her own nonsense.
It wasn’t arrogance when Rose said she was used to attention from guys. She’d never considered herself particularly stunning, but she’d always been comfortable with her body and with sex, and she’d often wondered if that was why she received so much attention. Now she wondered if it was her fae-ness giving off a “vibe.”
Anyway, Rose knew when a guy was into her.
Fionn Mór … was so not into her.
It was probably a good thing. Getting involved with a man who was over two thousand years old sounded complicated.
To say the least.
She bit back hysterical laughter at the thought and concentrated on finding out more about her mentor. “I want to know your story. If I’m to trust you, I need to know the background so I can work out why you’re helping me.”
He smirked. “You don’t think I’m helping you out of the goodness of my heart?”
She decided if she wanted honesty, she needed to give it in return. “No, I don’t. Your motives are as yet unclear.”
Fionn flicked her a quick look. “You’re astute, Rose.”
“Well …?”
His big hands flexed around the steering wheel. “How to condense such a tale into the length of a car ride …”
“Just start at the beginning.”
“At the beginning … Well, in the beginning I was just a warrior, raised in the time of clan warfare and of the invading fae. They didn’t come in legions; they appeared in our world as individuals and sought to make mischief at best and to torment and kill at worst. They stole our children, killed our livestock, and rape wasn’t excluded to women.”
Rose sucked in a breath, wondering at the legacy she belonged to and whether she wanted to know this stuff.
“They weren’t all bad.” It sounded like those words had been dragged out of him. “I know that now, after my time on Faerie, but it was the worst of the stories that met our ears when I was human. I was raised to fight.
“I’m going to tell you something that you must never tell anyone.” The look he pinned her with was dark. A little scary.
“O … kay.”
“There are only two things that can kill a fae here on earth. The first is pure iron. And it has to pierce the heart to succeed.”
The fairy tales of her youth came to mind. Stories about faeries and how they were allergic to iron.
It was all true.
“Few people know the truth of that,” Fionn continued. “Then again, most of the supernatural community believe the origin story is a myth.”
“Origin story?”
“That vamps and werewolves evolved from fae interference in the human world.”
“They did?”
He nodded. “We learned that iron hurt fae, and we began to hunt them.” Grim satisfaction crossed his features. “We were making progress in the war against them, and I led the way. My father-in-law was king of where Donegal is now, but when he died, I took the mantle. I destroyed so many fae, the entire upper half of Éireann—Ireland—fell under my kingship. It was the largest kingship on the island at the time, made up of five of the ten provinces making me rí ruirech — a king of overkings. They called me Rí Mac Tíre.” If he’d been any other man, he would have sounded wistful, but Fionn was frustratingly unemotional.
“What does that mean?”
“It means ‘The Wolf King.’”
She eyed him, a small smile curling her lips. It suited him. “Why?”
“Because I had a wolf as my loyal companion. Cónán.”
“How very badass.” She grinned. She could absolutely picture Fionn roaring into battle with a wolf at his side.
The image was also more than kind of hot.
“Together we killed many fae. Cónán would help me weaken them, then I’d stab them in the heart with an iron blade. One day we killed a royal prince. Of course, I didn’t know who he was when I was killing him … but for his death, Aine, the Faerie Queen, led an army into our world. She wiped out half my people.”
Rose drew in a breath, knowing there was no way he could be as undisturbed by this memory as he seemed to be. “I’m sorry.”
“One of her captains killed Cónán. My men had fallen. And the queen took me to my knees with her power, as if I were a mere babe.”
Jesus, she couldn’t imagine anyone powerful enough to take Fionn to his knees.
He hesitated a moment. “We made a bargain. Her army would go back to Faerie, my people would be spared, but in return I’d give myself to the fae as a slave.”
“Oh my God.” Rose reeled at the idea. Forty-eight hours ago, she’d never imagined she’d be sitting in a car beside a fae, talking casually about things that had until now been relegated to fantasy novels and movies in her mind. But now that she was, now that it was real, Fionn was real. And once upon a time, this huge, powerful being had been a human—an enslaved one. “Fionn.”
He seemed to jerk slightly at his name but his expression never changed as he kept his attention on the road. “I was there for six years. I met all manner of fae. Some weren’t all bad but all of them were superior. They don’t see humans as equals because they aren’t. The fae are higher up the food chain, and that is that. Think of how humans are with animals. How they raise them for slaughter or raise them as pets. In the latter case, no matter how much affection a human has for them, people consider themselves their owners. Masters over them. That is how the fae view humans.”
Rose curled her lip in disgust. And this was what she was? “I’ll never think like that.”
“Because you were raised as human. Just as I was.”
She nodded, feeling melancholy about her origins. Speaking of which … “Vampires and werewolves, they’re evolved from fae?”
“From fae and humans.”
“What did that vampire do to me last night? One minute I was standing in front of him, the next waking up in your hotel room.”
“He broke your neck.”
Rose gulped, her hand automatically curling around her throat. “What?”
Fionn’s expression was formidable. “Worry not. A broken neck will not kill you. Obviously. It also will not kill vamps and werewolves. Which leads me to the second thing that can kill us. A werewolf bite. Unless he or she is your mate, a werewolf bite will kill you. So take care around them.”
Holy. Crap.
Iron and werewolves. Okay then. Just two things in the whole world that could kill her. Just two.
At her continued silence he asked, “Do you still want to hear the rest?”
It would take a lot longer than a few minutes to process that she was practically unkillable! But Rose nodded anyway, afraid if he didn’t tell her now, he never would.
“For centuries, since the gate had opened, there was an unexpected evolution between fae and humans. It’s complicated—I can break down the fae hierarchy now or we can leave that for later?”
“Just tell me everything.”
She realized then that the car was slowing and turned from watching her companion to the road. They were approaching a large toll booth.
“To enter Slovenia,” Fionn explained.
“Do you need my passport?”
He shook his head. “Not anymore. Now that we know you’re on radar, we don’t want anyone to track you.”
“So how are we getting through without ID?”
Fionn didn’t respond, but she had her answer when the car pulled up to the window and the guard asked them for ID. Fionn stared intently at the guard, no words passed between them, but the guard reached out as if taking hold of a passport, flipped through two invisible items, handed them back, and then gestured them ahead as the barrier lifted.
What the ever-loving fuck?
“What just happened?” she asked as they drove into Slovenia.
“One of your talents is the ability to make humans see whatever it is you want them to see.” Fionn’s stare was stony. “It’s a dangerous talent, Rose, and you must utilize it sparingly. Only use it to ensure your survival.”
Holy crap.
She swallowed, thinking of the way the guard’s face had relaxed, going blank. Mindless. She shivered. “I don’t think I want to use it at all. Have you done that to me?”