Motor City Fae (10 page)

Moments later she collapsed on his chest, weak and spent. Feeling the same, he nuzzled her hair, delighting in the fresh lemony fragrance of her shampoo, overlaid with the heady musk of sweat and sex. Not wanting to move, he cuddled her close, stroking one hand up and down the silky skin of her back.

“Thank you.” Her words were muffled against his chest, so at first he didn’t think he’d heard her correctly.

“Huh?” That was him, Mr. Eloquent. His bardic mentors would be horrified to hear him now, but Meagan reduced his brain to a puddle of mush.

She shifted sideways, rolling to her back but still pressed alongside him. One small, elegant hand cupped his chin. “I said thank you, Alaric Thornhill. That was—

amazing.”

“Yeah.” And it was. Like nothing he’d ever known. He leaned up on one elbow and gazed down, enjoying the warm flush that suffused her skin, taking pride in the damp sheen of sweat that covered her limp body, which was still shuddering from occasional aftershocks. He brushed her tangled hair back from her face. “But I think you’ve got our lines confused. I’m supposed to be thanking you. You’re the amazing one.”

He looked at her, ready to face the music. As much as he’d love to keep her in bed for the next month, it wasn’t worth risking her safety to try it. He memorized the shining tumble of coppery curls, the soft, inviting glow of her emerald gaze and the lush, sexy pout of her swollen lips before moving his gaze downward toward her full, luxurious breasts, whose tips were still pointed and damp from his ministrations. After the next few moments, she might not let him see her like this again.

Sure enough, there it was. He’d spotted it when he’d first pulled her shirt off, but there hadn’t been enough blood in his brain for rational thought. Now that he could string two thoughts together, though, there was no doubt about it. The proof he’d been searching for was right in front of his eyes. He leaned down and placed a butterflysoft kiss on the flower-shaped birthmark that graced the upper curve of her luscious left breast. “But now, my beautiful Lady Rose, we need to talk.”

This was a conversation she didn’t think she wanted to have. Well, at least part of her didn’t. Sure, she wanted to find out what he knew about her birth parents, but she didn’t want to admit that Ric had ulterior motives. And she really, really didn’t want to talk it out naked, still damp from sweat and—well—everything else. She stopped him with a finger to his lips. “Give me five minutes.” Then she grabbed some clean clothes out of the laundry basket next to her closet and dashed for the bathroom.

The only problem with that solution was that while standing alone in the shower, she couldn’t shut up the voices babbling in her brain. They kept pointing out that there were now other things to worry about. Like having unprotected sex for the first time in her life. Twice. And she was irregular enough to have no idea which days were supposed to be safe.

Well, she’d always wanted kids. Someday. She could support a child, if she had to and at least in the art world being a single parent wasn’t a social stigma. She wasn’t even going to think about disease. Present circumstances aside, Ric didn’t strike her as that irresponsible.

Unable to justify stalling any longer, she rinsed the conditioner out of her hair and turned off the water. A few minutes later she’d combed out her hair, pulled on jeans and a tank top and left the sanctuary of the bathroom to find Ric. As soon as she stepped out into the hallway, she knew, somehow, that he was waiting in her studio. The house was almost uncannily silent, but somehow she simply sensed his whereabouts.

Taking a cleansing breath, she squared her shoulders and walked in to meet her fate. Every instinct she possessed was telling her that after this conversation, her simple, pleasant life was never going to be quite the same.

Ric stood framed in a block of sunlight, looking even more than usual like the golden statue of a god. He’d put his jeans back on and his shirt, but it was untucked, rumpled and he was still barefoot. His long hair was mussed around his shoulders and her mouth watered just from looking at him. He was so beautiful it almost hurt.

She saw his shoulders tense, knew he’d sensed her enter the room, but he kept his back to her, his face lifted to a painting on the far wall. It was the first of her impressionist landscapes, the one she’d been so compelled to paint and the one that had established her current style and direction. In a simple pine frame, it depicted a stone cottage, weathered with age, yet somehow timeless, set into a rose garden and surrounded by woods. She’d displayed it, had offers, but though she’d sold those that came after it, she’d never been able to part with this one piece of her soul.

“How did you paint this, Meagan?” Ric’s voice was soft, husky. He held out a hand to draw her near, his gaze never leaving the painting. She took his hand, moved close, comforted by the arm he draped about her shoulders. “Have you ever seen this place?”

“I dreamt it.” She’d never admitted to anyone except Jase that her landscapes were places from her dreams.

“A bit of a psychic, aren’t you, love?”

She felt herself flush, turned her face to the floor, away from his knowing gaze. “Not really.”

He cleared his throat and asked the question she’d been expecting. “The Kellys were your adoptive parents, yeah?”

“Yeah. But they were the best, the only parents I ever knew. They got me when I was a few days old.”

“Lucky them.” He squeezed her shoulder gently and kept talking. “Do you know anything at all about your natural parents?”

“Not really. My mom, my adoptive mother that is, Margaret Kelly, was a nurse. She and my dad had always wanted kids, but couldn’t. Then a woman in labor checked into the hospital and asked if there was anyone there who would adopt her child.”

Meagan paused, tried to put the words in a semicoherent order. She’d heard the story a dozen times when her mother had been alive, but somehow repeating it was more difficult than she’d expected. Her mouth was as dry as the years-old paint splotches on the floor.

“According to my mom, the woman seemed to know she wasn’t going to survive the birth. She swore the father was dead and there was no living family to take me. Mom promised that she’d raise me and the priest who came in to administer last rites witnessed it. Social Services tried to find a blood relative, but the woman had given a false name and they came up empty, so eventually the Kellys were allowed to adopt me.”

She’d turned into his embrace; her nose was only inches from his chest. She could smell him, his natural musk overlaid with the scent of recent sex. Now it was even harder to concentrate on ancient history. He squeezed her shoulder, a gesture so whisper-soft it barely registered. “Go on.”

“The only thing my birth mother asked was that my middle name be Rose. I suppose because of the birthmark.” She knew he’d seen the small strawberry mark on her chest. He’d even kissed it right before she’d fled to the shower. “That’s it.”

“So that’s the tale of Meagan Rose.” He leaned down and pressed a slow, sweet kiss on her lips, then pulled back and drew her close to his chest for a hug. “Are you ready to hear what brought me to Detroit to find you?”

She nodded, though she wasn’t sure she’d ever be truly ready. Ric took her arm, gently led her over to the ragged, paint-stained gray velour sofa in the corner and sat down beside her, still holding on to her hand.

“I know who your parents were, Meagan. The birthmark on your breast is the proof, but that painting is more evidence than anyone would ever need. That’s the house your father grew up in. It’s called Rosemeade and it’s the estate of the family Rose.”

Rosemeade. It sounded right, somehow, as if she’d always known the name. She lifted a hand to her chest, touched the mark through the fabric of her tank top.

“Rose. The
family
Rose.”

He nodded, his lips a fine straight line. His eyes were serious, even grim. “Your father’s name was Emery, Lord Rose. He was killed shortly before you were born.”

“Lord?” Her voice rose in pitch, she knew she sounded hysterical. “My father was a lord?”

“That’s right. The oldest in each generation, the heir, always bears the mark of the rose. That’s how we knew you had to be out there somewhere. If they’d succeeded in killing Emery’s heir, the mark would have appeared on the next in succession.”

“That’s silly. Birthmarks don’t just appear.” She tried to ignore the “killing” part.

“Not everything works the way you think it does, love. Please listen. I know this is going to be hard for you to accept, but you have to try. Meagan, your father wasn’t exactly…human.”

She didn’t answer, but stared at him, dumbfounded.

Ric looked dead serious. Was he crazy? Drunk? Lots of musicians did drugs, right? Ric didn’t seem stoned, but maybe he’d had too much at one time or another and was having a flashback. Or maybe he was just wacko.

Then again, maybe it was a humongous joke and if she laughed hard enough, it would all go away. Eventually she found her voice. “So what was he, a vampire?”

“Have you ever heard of the sidhe?”

“She?” He couldn’t have said that other word.

“Sidhe. S-I-D-H-E. Otherwise known as the Fae.”

“Fairies?” Her voice squeaked up half an octave. “You have so-o-o got to be kidding.”

“I’m afraid not. Your father Emery was one of the Fae. What most humans call an elf.”

“Elf!” He seemed so serious, but this had to be a joke.

A really bad one. Maybe she was being “punked” by some reality TV show. Whatever it was, it was starting to seriously piss her off. “Gee, are we talking about the kind that makes cookies, or the ones that help Santa make toys?” To her vast dismay, she felt tears welling up in her eyes. She always cried when she was pissed. She blinked them back, refusing to give him that satisfaction.

He leaned over, took both of her hands in his. “Look at me, Meagan. Look closely.” There was something in his voice too compelling to resist. She looked up, into his amber-gold eyes.

And she watched them change.

It wasn’t a dramatic alteration. If she’d been a casual observer, she’d probably never have noticed the difference. But his eyes got a bit larger, their shape morphing subtly into something more almond-like, a touch more alien. The pupils elongated vertically, not to a cat-like slit, but a gentle ellipse. And they glowed. Not with passion, or anger, or even his music, like before.

This time they were quite simply luminous.

With a trembling hand, she reached up and brushed back his hair, which hadn’t changed. Her fingers grazed the tip of his ear. Sure enough, the tiny point she’d noticed when they’d made love was still there, only now it was even more pronounced.

“Yes, it’s pointed.” His voice was rough. Not with arousal, like before, but from some other emotion she couldn’t begin to identify.

She looked back at the tightly drawn lines of his face.

Were his cheekbones a smidgen sharper? His forehead higher? It was impossible to be sure. All she knew was that he was the same man she’d made love to a short while earlier and yet, at the same time, he wasn’t. She drew back, leaning heavily on the padded arm of the couch for support.

“This can’t be real.”

“I assure you it is. This is me, Meagan. Whether you like it or not, this is what I truly look like.” It was odd, but he almost sounded nervous.
Nah, couldn’t be.

She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, almost pounded it on his chest in lieu of a handy wall. “Of course I
like
it. You have to know that you’re gorgeous, either way. That isn’t the point.”

The taut cords in his neck relaxed, the stark whiteness around his lips receded. This time, his tone was smoother, gentler. “Then what exactly
is
the point?”

“It’s kind of unnerving coming face to face with a dream.”

“A dream?” His face was still stony, but one corner of his mouth twitched upward for a second.

“The dreams, the ones where I see my landscapes. Sometimes there are people in them. People who look like you.”

“But you don’t paint them?”

“No. I’m not very good at portraits. Besides, I didn’t want everyone to know I was nuts.” Her forced laugh sounded sort of hysterical, even to her. She finger-combed her hair, tugging at the tangles. The slight pain reassured her that she was, in fact, awake.

“You’re not mad, Meagan Rose.” Warm hands clasped hers, pulled them out of her hair, into his lap. “And you’re not dreaming at the moment either. You’re a wee bit confused.”

“You say my father was an—” She struggled to get the word out. “An elf.”

He nodded. “That’s correct.”

“Like you.”

“Also correct.”

“And me?” The squeaky note of hysteria was back.

“Half-elf.” His hands gripped tighter, holding her steady.

“Wouldn’t I have known about something like that?”

Surely there would have been signs. Her ears weren’t pointy at all.

“Not necessarily. I’m fairly certain that your father cast a blocking spell, a sort of camouflage, for want of a better word, on you before you were born. That would explain why it took us so long to find you. It would have hidden you from other elves and blocked your powers from being noticed by the humans around you and probably even yourself.”

“Powers?”

“Yes, love, powers. And later, when we have more time, I promise to help you explore them. Right now, though, there’s danger and I’d like to get you somewhere safe.”

A dreadful thought occurred and she sat up, tugging her hands free and crossing them over her chest. “We aren’t—related are we? You and me?”

He laughed and suddenly all the scary intensity was gone. He was Ric again, albeit with pointy ears and glowing eyes. “No, love. No worries on that score. Incest is as frowned on in my world as it is yours. Maybe more.”

She chuckled back in relief.

“You do have a cousin, though.”

“I do?” She’d spent years longing for family, more so since the deaths of her adoptive parents, who had both been only children themselves. “What’s her name?”

“Aidan Greene.”