The Immortal Highlander

Adam watched Gabrielle through narrowed eyes and, though he appreciated Drustan’s formal welcome, was pleased that Dageus recalled him, and delighted that his ka-lyrra was finally beginning to see him for who he was, it was all currently doing little to appease him.

He’d not anticipated his reaction to seeing Gabrielle around the twins.

He didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. There was too much testosterone in the room. And all of his—no inconsiderable amount—was invisible.

And knowing Drustan and Dageus were married wasn’t doing a damn thing to ease his mind. Really, did she have to smile at them like that? Didn’t she understand they were men and men were not to be trusted around a woman like Gabrielle, no matter how happily married they allegedly were? And Christ, he couldn’t even mark his territory. Touching her in small, intimate ways failed to establish anything, because each time he did it, it only made her invisible to them.

He’d never hated being invisible more. Around normal men back in Cincinnati it had been of no consequence, but the Keltar were not normal men.

He toyed irritably with his empty tumbler of scotch, rolling it back and forth between his palms, eyeing the bottle on the sidebar.

Casting the MacKeltars a black look—which of course they couldn’t see, but it made him feel mildly better—he stood, refilled his glass, and began pacing the library. It was a spacious, masculine room with cherry bookcases recessed in paneled walls, comfortable chairs and ottomans, a dusky rose marble fireplace, and tall bay windows. He circled it, absently examining books, listening while Gabby continued filling them in on their—ah, no, her—version of events to date. He’d tried to get her to tell it his way, but she’d seemed perversely delighted by the opportunity to tell the MacKeltars all about how her life had gotten so screwed up since his advent into it.

Gwen and Chloe were making sympathetic little noises, and he could just smell the bloody female bonding going on in the room. Everyone was bonding, except for the invisible person.

Bloody hell, he was hungry. But did he get to eat? No. Gabby had spoken for both of them, bypassing a meal, accepting a light snack in the library.

Shortbreads, candies, and nuts? A mortal body could expire of starvation on such meager fare.

And she’d not yet even gotten to the part where Darroc and the Hunters had appeared yet. Gwen and Chloe seemed fascinated by the notion of Sidhe-seers and had been asking dozens of utterly unnecessary questions about what it was like to be one. At this rate, it could take all night to get to the important parts—like what Adam needed them to do. If only he could speak for himself! He was beginning to wonder if she’d even manage to get it all wrapped up by Lughnassadh.

Currently she was elaborating about those idiotic, apocryphal O’Callaghan Books, and Chloe, antiquities lover and relentless bookworm, was trying to set up a time to come to Cincinnati to see them. Books. Faery was in danger, his queen was at risk, Darroc was trying to kill them, Hunters were on the loose, and they were talking about frigging books!

It mollified him only mildly to hear her say, “You’re welcome to see them, Chloe, but, frankly, I think my ancestors might have gotten a lot of stuff wrong.”

About high damn time she admitted that, he thought, eyes narrowing, his gaze raking over her possessively. Willing her to look up at him. To make him feel less invisible.

But she didn’t so much as cast a tiny glance his way, she was too busy answering yet another irrelevant question.

He was just about to stalk out and go help himself to something from the kitchen when Dageus said thoughtfully, “So ’tis the féth fiada he’s cursed with that keeps us from seeing him?”

Adam’s head whipped around. “What does he know of it, ka-lyrra?” he said, suddenly alert. Dageus was another human wild card, like his Sidhe-seer; the things he’d endured in the past year had changed him in ways of which none could be entirely certain. Had changed him so much, in fact, that when the present Dageus had encountered himself in the past—which should have canceled one of them out—it hadn’t. Which was part of the reason the High Council had so firmly advocated his destruction. Of course, some among them had been driven by more nefarious motives, like Darroc.

“Yes, it is, and Adam wants to know what you know of it,” Gabby related for him.

Dageus smiled faintly. “More than I e’er wished to. I used it myself to borrow a few rare tomes I needed not too long ago. We call it the magic mantle, or Druid’s fog. ’Tis no’ easy to wear; ’tis a chilling spell. There are two versions of it. The version the MacKeltars were taught, and the spell the Draghar knew—a much more potent, triumvirate enchantment, in the Tuatha Dé tongue. I ne’er used that version.”