The Immortal Highlander

She’d just stood there, dazed, looking up at him, knowing she should have put up at least a token fight, for heaven’s sake!

Wishing he’d do it again. The right way.

And, damn it, he’d known exactly what effect he’d had on her; the pure masculine satisfaction in his eyes had been unmistakable.

With a little growl of irritation, she rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand and forced her mind away from that abysmal, aggravating, humiliating kiss, to what she’d learned over a pilfered lunch on the train.

Which wasn’t much. No one could ever accuse Adam Black of overdisclosing. He either didn’t like to talk to humans about Faery, or he didn’t like to talk to her about Faery, because she’d had to pull teeth to get anything out of him at all. And what she’d gotten was, she figured, not even the tip of the iceberg.

The beautiful, scarred, copper-haired Fae she’d seen was Darroc, a High Council Elder and an ancient nemesis of Adam’s. He believed Darroc had armed the Hunters with human weapons to make his death look like an accident, as if he’d inadvertently gotten caught in a spray of mortal gunfire. He believed Darroc was planning an attempt to usurp the queen’s power and, as they’d ever been on opposing sides, was taking advantage of the opportunity to get Adam out of the way once and for all.

And that was the sum total of what she’d managed to learn. He’d refused to tell her what plan he had for saving them, only that he did, indeed, have one. He’d refused to discuss why he and Darroc despised each other so greatly, though when he’d spoken of him his deep voice had resonated with fury, forcing her to finally admit that part of what she’d been raised to believe was simply wrong: Fae did feel emotion.

She could no longer deny it anymore. The evidence was right there in front of her eyes, and the brehon in her could not ignore evidence no matter how much she might like to. She could no longer tell herself that he was experiencing feelings because he was in human form and subject to the human condition. No, Adam and Darroc had hated each other for millennia, she’d heard it in his voice, and hate was emotion. Strong, deep emotion. Emotion he’d experienced in his Tuatha Dé form.

The O’Callaghan Books clearly said, as Gram had confirmed, that Fae were incapable of any emotion. Large or small. That they were cold, icy, arrogant, unfeeling. Nor was there any mention of politics or feuds or any of those human-sounding things going on in Faery—as if the Fae were actually very much like humans. How could the books have been so wrong?

Gee, maybe because they were written by the O’Callaghans who’d escaped the Fae. By ancestors who never interacted with one, never even spoke with one. Would you believe the report of an investigator who’d never even interviewed his subject? Present such a shoddy bit of “proof” in a case? The prosecution would have a field day with it!

Oh, such thoughts were shaking her foundation at the very core. She blew out a gusty breath.

Try to see past your preconceptions, Irish, would you? he’d said.

Damn it all, he was blasting through them, one by one.

After she dried her hair, Gabby used the hotel phone to check her messages at home. Her mom had called four times to remind her that she’d promised to fly out to California for her stepsister’s graduation next weekend, and she’d really like to talk to her before then.

Gabby sighed. She hardly even knew her stepsiblings. In fact, she had been to California only twice in the past five years and couldn’t understand why it was suddenly so important to her mom that she attend a stupid high-school graduation. But lately her mom seemed to be coming up with all kinds of excuses to get Gabby to fly out for a visit.

She may not be perfect, but she’s the only mother you’re ever going to have. You need to give her a chance, Gram had said a hundred times.

I gave her a chance. I was born to her. That’s a chance. She left.

Gabby, you need to try to see things from her—

No.

As she sat in a hotel room in Atlanta, she could still hear her mom’s voice from all those years ago as clearly as if she were seven again, awakened by a need to go to the bathroom, standing in her nightgown at the top of the stairs in the drafty, winter-chilled house, clutching a tattered stuffed unicorn, clinging to the carved post in the dark.

She’s fascinated by them! She thinks they’re beautiful and wants to go live with them!

She’s a child, Jilly. She’ll grow out of it.

Then, you’ll have to help her grow out of it, because I can’t. I can’t deal with this.

That night, had her vision been an appendage she could have hacked off with a knife, she would have. Stay, Mommy. I’ll be good. I promise. I don’t mean to see them.