Inverness.
Morganna.
It was near here that she’d lived so long ago, at Castle Brodie.
And suddenly, in that side-view mirror there were no roads, no hotels or shops, no diners or pubs, nothing but wide-open, unspoiled land stretching beneath a vast blue sky . . .
I love you, he’d told her, astonished himself when the words had fallen from his tongue. But Circenn had just been born and was wrapped in blankets, cradled in her arms—his son. She’d been sweat-glistening, damp-haired, exhausted, and glowing with an innately female radiance. And something had come over him. He’d said it, and it had been too late to recant. And, bloody hell, how swiftly he’d wished to recant.
She’d torn her gaze reluctantly from the bairn and tipped her face up.
And she’d laughed.
If he’d had a soul, it would have sliced right through it.
Her laughter had been soft and wry, and all the more abrasive for it. For in it, there’d been a touch of pity.
Ye canna love, Fae. Ye have no soul.
So much for Adam Black’s words. Had any woman ever believed them? Or merely bowed to his irresistible sensual lure, fallen prey in body but never in heart? Once, he’d not cared. But time and contact with humans had done strange things to him, changed him, made him begin to wonder about things he’d never wondered about before—and sometimes he felt like he imagined Gabrielle must: straddling two worlds, one foot here, one foot there, no place that felt like home.
How do you know I can’t love? he’d hissed. So casually she’d thrown the words back in his face, words he’d never said before. Words he’d never said again. Define love, Morganna.
She’d been silent for a time, staring down at the tiny infant snuffling wetly in her arms.
Love means ye’d die for that person a thousand times o’er, she’d finally said, gazing down at the newborn. Ye’d give the verra last drop of all ye had to give to tarry at their side but one moment more, to behold them alive and hale and happy.
That’s not fair, he’d countered. You know I don’t have a soul. If I die, I cease to exist forever. If you die, you go on. To some other time, some other place, some other world. I become dust. Nothing more. You can’t hold me to the same criteria.
Ye wish to play at being like us but nae held to the same accounts? If ye truly love someone, Fae princeling, ye’d give the verra last drop of all ye had to give—whate’er it may be. And ye’d nae squabble o’er differences.
Maybe it’s you who can’t love, Morganna. Maybe when you love someone it means you’d be willing—not to die—but to give up your immortal soul for them. So maybe it’s your failing, not mine.
And so the argument had begun. The timeless, eternal, never-changing argument between them. Until the unique Tuatha Dé bond forged between a Fae male and human woman the instant a child was conceived had become more painful than pleasing. Until they’d both built walls to keep the other out.
By Danu, how many times had they had that fight? A hundred? A thousand?
Right up to the day she died. And he’d stood over her deathbed, trying to get her to take the damned elixir of life, as he’d been trying to get her to since she’d been seventeen; but like a fool, in a rare moment of abjectly stupid honesty all those years ago, he’d told the young Morganna of its unsavory side effect: that immortality and immortal souls could not coexist.
That once she took it, in a short number of years all trace of that by which she defined her humanity would be gone. That soft golden glow surrounding her would fade day by day, until nothing of it was left. Until she was as void of that divine inner flame as any Fae.
She would change, they always did.
But better a soulless Morganna than a dead one.
Never, Adam. Let me die.
He could have taken away her memory of his admission. He could have forced her to take the elixir. He could have made her believe anything he’d wanted her to believe.
But what he’d wanted her to believe was that he was worth it.
Would it be so bloody bad to be like me? he’d thundered. Am I such a foul being, then, without a soul, Morganna? Have I not been good to you? What is it you want from me I’ve not given you? What have I failed to do, be?
“Adam, there’s something I don’t get. Why didn’t Darroc just kill us?” Gabby asked abruptly, jarring him from his dark reverie. “He had the advantage of surprise. He could have shot you in the back, or hit you over the head or something.”
He blinked, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Christ, those memories had come suddenly and without warning, crashing over him so intensely that he’d forgotten where he was for a few moments. He’d been back there, hating her for dying. Hating her for looking down on him until the very end for lacking that with which she’d had the grace to be born.