Authors: Cindy Spencer Pape
Aidan waved at the door and it swung shut. Damn, she still wasn’t used to the whole bibbidi-bobbidi-boo thing.
“Have a seat.” His voice was warm, amused. She’d barely noticed his oversized oak desk last night, but today it was piled high with paperwork. A couple of leather club chairs, the same style as the ones that were gathered around the fireplace, faced the broad expanse of desk. She sat.
Another gesture from Aidan had the paperwork gathered into two tidy piles and the desk between them cleared. She set her plate and glass down, leaned her elbows on the glossy burnished wood. “Handy skills. I’m going to guess that drink rings on the desk aren’t a real problem either.”
The grin he returned reminded her so sharply of the one she sometimes saw in her mirror, it sent a weird tremor through her stomach. “Not at all. Feel free to finish your breakfast. I’m sure there are…”
“I have like a million questions…” Both of them had spoken at once.
“Go ahead.” They said the words at the same time.
Then they both cracked up.
“This is so weird.” Meagan found her voice first, still chuckling.
“Amen.” The expression in Aidan’s green eyes was so intense that she would have been scared if she hadn’t been sure he was on her side. They softened, still glowing with warmth. “But it’s a nice sort of weird. I’m so glad to have you here at last.”
“Me too.” She realized that wasn’t quite right. “I mean, I’m glad to be here. To meet you. Knowing that somebody out there cares, that I wasn’t rejected—it’s every adopted child’s dream.”
“Never that, dear one. Your parents wanted you so desperately and I’ve spent the last thirty years searching. You were never, ever rejected.” Aidan radiated such sincerity that Meagan choked up.
“Thanks,” she replied thickly. “That—means a lot.”
Way more than she could begin to express.
“How much has Ric told you about your heritage?”
“Bits and pieces. There’s so much. I’m not sure he even knows where to begin and I’m too overwhelmed to know what to ask,” she admitted. “I can’t quite get past the whole elf, magical, Lady Rose part. It doesn’t seem real.”
“Understandable. Anything I can do to help, anything you’d like to ask, know that I’m here for you.”
“How old are you?” she blurted. “Ric said he didn’t know, that it wasn’t considered polite to ask, but it’s driving me crazy.”
“Polite doesn’t matter among family. I was born in the year 895, I think. We don’t always measure time the same way and the mortal calendar has shifted a bit in the interim. I’m a bit over eleven hundred years old.”
“How old was my father?”
“Younger than I. Emery was under a thousand when he died. Far too young by elven standards.”
“I still don’t really know what happened to him and why I was hidden. Were my parents criminals, or something?” That was one of the things she’d been worrying about since the notion had occurred to her in the shower this morning. “Is it illegal for one of your people to hook up with a human?”
“No, nothing like that.” He was quick to assuage that particular concern. “But there are those who frown on it, especially since your father was a lord and any child he produced would one day head one of our noble houses. The Fae have their social and political activists like any race and one of the groups is focused on the idea of racial purity, especially among the ruling class.”
That she understood. “Sort of like the Nazis.”
Aidan nodded, his lips drawn thin, his expression grave. “A great deal like them, I’m afraid. They believe that interacting with mortals dilutes our culture and that mating with mortals dilutes our bloodline. Sometimes one of these activists goes further than speeches at council and resorts to murder. I’m fairly certain that Emery was the target of such an assassin; there had been an uprising of anti-mortal sentiment that year. It explains why he used the last of his energy to hide you from his killer.”
“But you knew I was alive, somewhere.” Ric had explained that, though she hadn’t really gotten the whole story. Her hand drifted to her chest, unconsciously touching her birthmark through the thin material of her shirt. “Something about my birthmark.”
“That’s correct. Each of our noble houses has a mark that appears on the skin of the heir only after the passing of his or her predecessor.” He rolled up the sleeve of his crisp white dress shirt to reveal his left wrist. Right above the black leather strap of his Movado watch, she saw a dark green spot that she would have taken for a tattoo.
She looked closely. About the size of a thimble, the mark was an intricately drawn oak leaf.
“My mother had the same mark—the Green Oak indicator. It always appears on the current ruler of my house. Seconds after my mother died, it appeared on my arm. The family Rose mark, the one my cousin had, is a pink rose that lies above the heart.” His features tightened.
“Ric assures me that you carry it. If you hadn’t survived, it would have appeared on the next in line and believe me, he would have wasted no time claiming the title.”
“So that must mean I have at least one more relative,” she reasoned, her head cocking sideways. “Whoever would have been the next heir, right?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, my dear,” Aidan warned.
“There are other distant relatives living and of course I’ll make a point of introducing you to all of them, but none were close to your father. As for your heir presumptive, he is not likely to welcome you with open arms. Diarmud is one of the elven purists and I’ve always suspected he had a hand in Emery’s murder. You’ll need to be extremely careful around him.”
Meagan set down her bagel, her mouth gone suddenly dry. “It just doesn’t make sense. Until yesterday I didn’t even know that elves existed, let alone that I was partly one. How can I be a political player when I don’t even know the rules, the history, the sides? Why on Earth would anyone in your world care what I think or do?”
“You’re a player because you have a hereditary seat on the Seelie Council and an important vote is scheduled to take place in two days.” He rubbed his eyes. “Didn’t Ric explain any of this?”
She shook her head and Aidan made a noise that in a less sophisticated man might have been taken for a snarl.
“What the hell have you two been doing the whole time?”
He paused, shook his head and held up a hand. “Never mind, I know, but I don’t really want to hear about it.” A snifter filled with a dark amber liquid appeared next to his hand. It looked like the cognac from last night, but this time instead of a sip, Aidan took a long pull. “Did he at least mention Owain le Faire?”
“Yes, though he told me his name was Ferris.”
“Owen Ferris is his current alias. We all adopt locally appropriate names when we’re traveling in the mortal realm. His elven name is Owain and he’s called le Faire for his pale coloring. Surnames are a relatively modern invention; you’ll want to pay attention to that when you go to court. By our tradition, your name is Meagan, Lady Rose, not Meagan Rose Kelly.”
“And I should refer to you as Lord Green Oak, not Mr.
Greene.”
“That’s right, but you’re always welcome to call me Aidan. I’ve been Oakley Green, A. Daniel Oakland and a dozen other variations in the last few centuries. We have to change personas every generation or so to blend in and to disguise our lifespan.”
She opened her mouth to ask about Ric, but Aidan forestalled her before she could say a word. “Ask him yourself. Right now we have more important things to discuss, like the Seelie Council.” Great. Aidan could read her mind, too, like Ric. She wondered if she’d develop that power in time.
Aidan went on. “Right now, you are the only thing that stands between Owain and the elven throne.”
“Huh?” Ric hadn’t exactly gone into detail on that part.
Aidan ran his hand through his hair, leaving one piece sticking up straight. He took another swallow of his drink and Meagan sat up straight, trying even harder to pay attention and follow his explanation.
“Our government is called the Seelie Court and the governing body is known as the Seelie Council. The council is made up of the heads of the twenty-one noble houses, similar to England’s House of Lords. The monarch is elected from among the council, but once elected, usually serves for life, or until they choose to step down. Llyris Astrella has been queen for over a thousand years and despite being a cold, ruthless bitch, she’s done a reasonably good job. She’s also more than a bit powerhungry, so she’s in no hurry to relinquish the crown.”
Meagan nodded her understanding.
“If a sufficient number of council members call for a vote, Llyris becomes subject to recall. Owain has, through bribery and blackmail, gotten enough signatures to force an election. He has also, according to the queen, gathered enough supporters to win the vote. And if Owain le Faire becomes the new elven king, things will get very bad, very quickly. Early in her reign, Llyris negotiated a treaty with the mortal leaders, pledging that the Fae would never try to take control of their realm. Owain is rabidly antihuman and seeks to revoke that agreement. His goal, we believe, is to either destroy or enslave all of the inhabitants of the mortal realm.”
“You have got to be kidding!” This was the stuff of every late-night B movie she’d ever seen. Maybe someone had slipped her a mickey in the club the other night and everything since had been some sort of druginduced dream.
“It’s no dream, Meagan. Unfortunately it’s all too real. The way the council is structured, the queen may only vote in the event of a tie. With your seat empty, the vote will be nine to ten, in Owain’s favor. Your vote for Llyris would create the tie, allowing the queen to cast the deciding ballot. That is why the bard was ordered to find you, to produce you for the council meeting. Diarmud of Rose is one of Owain’s supporters. If the House of Rose falls to him, Llyris will be dethroned and the treaty overturned. If that happens, the fate of both races could hang in the balance.”
Ric was stalling. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was. He’d long since finished any useful errands he’d had to run. Meagan’s home was well and truly warded against intruders, except for Jase, who Meagan was going to ask to water the plants and take in the mail. Ric had hoped to find Jase in his apartment over Meagan’s garage, but the man had obviously not been home since the night before.
Ric had also stopped by a drug store and made the purchases he’d promised. Several boxes in fact. On a whim he’d also picked up a dozen coral-colored roses. He wanted to give Meagan something to show how much last night had meant to him. He couldn’t believe he’d been so rash as to take her without protection—several times.
In the centuries he’d lived, of course Ric had thought about siring children. He’d spent a great deal of time thinking about why he wasn’t going to and how to insure that he didn’t. There was no place in his life for a mate or a child. Llyris had made that abundantly clear.
He drove back to Aidan’s cautiously, checking with both eyes and magic to be sure he wasn’t followed. Owain wouldn’t give up without a fight, of that much Ric was certain.
He found Meagan in Aidan’s office, looking shellshocked but determined.
“I want to meet them, Aidan.” Her tiny foot tapped the floor in a staccato beat. “Now. Before I get whisked off to who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long.”
“I thought you understood that it isn’t safe,” Aidan argued. Ric lounged against the doorframe. Obviously the two had been going at it for a while and Aidan had underestimated Meagan’s hard-headedness. A soft smile curved his lips as he watched.
“You and Ric will keep me safe.” Ric felt a thrill at her staunch confidence in his abilities, even while he shook his head.
Aidan looked up at Ric, raking a hand through his hair.
“
You
talk some sense into her. She’s decided she has to meet her grandparents before she leaves for court.”
“Ric!” Meagan’s smile was blinding as she spun around to see him. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He shouldn’t have missed her so much, not when he’d been gone such a short time. It took everything he had in him not to sweep her into his arms and kiss the daylights out of her, but he settled for catching the hand she held out and dropping a quick peck on her wrist. If they were heading to court today, he had to learn to keep his hands to himself and she was going to have to learn to hide her response to his presence.
“You need to work on your listening skills, love.” He wrestled his hormones under control. “You’ll be at a huge disadvantage at court if you can’t hear them coming.”
She grimaced. “I know. The senses this morning have been pretty weird. Most of the time I can handle the brighter colors, the sharper smells, but once in a while, something will catch me off guard and everything spins for a second.”
“You’ll get the hang of it, never fear,” he assured her.
“So you’ve decided to meet Linda’s parents, have you?”
“Well, duh!” Her snort left no doubt as to her opinion of his question. “If either of you had bothered to mention yesterday that I had grandparents still living, we’d have had this conversation already. I told you that both of my parents were older when they adopted me. I’ve never had grandparents before and I’m not going anywhere till I get to meet them.”
“They’ll be over the moon, you know,” Ric mused to Aidan. “When I spoke with them last week, they made me promise I’d keep them informed.”
“You’ve met them too?” Her eyes narrowed and the foot resumed its tapping. “Explain!”
Ric hated to deny her, but Aidan was right on this one. “When the queen sent me here, I had Aidan introduce me to the Jamesons. I’d hoped that if I got to know them, I might be more likely to recognize you if I found you. But that was well before Owain knew I was here. I’m sorry, love, but I think your cousin has the right of it this time. If Owain finds them, he could use them as leverage against you.”
Her face fell; she understood.
“I promise, as soon as everything is sorted out, I’ll personally take you to meet them.”
“Fair enough.” There was resignation in the sigh she heaved. “But it isn’t at all fair that you got to meet them and I didn’t. What were they like?”