Seven Black Diamonds (Seven Black Diamonds #1)(21)

“But you . . . I . . . You can’t just go around blowing things up and . . . and kissing people.”

“It was a welcome gift,” he said, staring at her in obvious confusion.

“Just stay away from me.” She shivered, both from the intensity of his stare and her body’s response to his kiss.

“You don’t know,” he whispered. His eyes widened, and his lips parted. “Holy Ninian! You don’t even know.”

His reference to the old Pictish saint, said to have been fae, unnerved her further, but she still asked, “Know what?”

“Who you are,” Zephyr said quietly. “You have no idea. That’s why you didn’t seek us out. That’s why you . . .” He snagged her around the waist again, but this time his hold was so tight that she couldn’t escape.

Lily tried to yank away. She knew what she was, knew that the blood of the fae was in her not-too-distant ancestry. That didn’t mean she was admitting a thing.

“I thought you were just too Seelie for us,” Zephyr murmured.

“Too what?” She took a step back. That was even more dangerous than invoking Ninian. Seelie was an illegal word, one not used casually in public. Lily needed to get the hell away from Zephyr. Blowing things up, kissing her, accusing her of being fae, he was frightening. He could get them killed . . . or worse.

“Seelie.” He started walking, propelling Lily with him along the pier. “Come on. We need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” She pulled out of his hold. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

They were still. Then, after several moments, Zephyr nodded. “I’ll see you around, Lilywhite.”

He walked away. She returned to campus in hopes that her room was ready. She’d been here not even an hour, and she’d been accused of being fae, kissed, and witnessed a bombing. She wasn’t entirely sure which was the most disturbing. Any of them were dangerous.

As she walked the couple of miles back to campus, Lily debated what to do. Zephyr was clearly involved in something—either as a fae sympathizer or zealously anti-fae. Either option wasn’t one she wanted any part of, but there were such similarities in what both Creed and Zephyr had said to her that she wasn’t sure she could stay clear of it without more information. Both knew about her, her ancestry, and seemed to have been “waiting” for her. How that was possible, she didn’t know.

However, what she did know was that it was better that Daidí not hear about her “welcome surprise” from Zephyr until she investigated. Abernathy Commandment #4: Weigh the consequences before beginning a course of action.





ten


EILIDH

Eilidh was grateful that Rhys had decided to help her, to protect her and potentially Torquil. She knew that he was limited in what he could do, but knowing that she had an ally was a relief she hadn’t expected. Of course, none of that made it easier to face him or Torquil. She’d admitted that the missing child had survived, been raised in the human world, and had a life there for years.

“Who are you?” a ten-year-old Eilidh asked the woman standing inside the Hidden Lands.

“Iana.” The woman looked around the somewhat bleak landscape. “Where am I?”

“Hidden Lands.” Eilidh walked closer to her. “You look like Mother.”

The woman squatted down in front of Eilidh. She didn’t stare at her in horror the way some of the Seelie did, and she didn’t ease away as if she couldn’t see Eilidh the way a lot of the Unseelie did. They weren’t technically to use those terms any longer. The courts were one. They were simply . . . fae.

“Who is your mother?” she asked.

“Endellion, Queen of Blood and Rage, once queen of only the Unseelie, but now . . . she protects all of us.” Eilidh was proud of her mother. The queen was their guardian, the warrior who would keep the humans from destroying them all. “She had no sisters. So how can you . . .”

“Do you have sisters . . . ?”

“Eilidh. I’m Eilidh.” She sounded her name out carefully—Ay-leigh—for the woman. “I had a sister. She died in the sea, and Mother had to kill the bad men.”

“Oh.” The woman brushed Eilidh’s hair back. “I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t know her. She was a baby, waaaay before I was born.” Eilidh smiled at the woman.

She looked like Mother would if she was happy sometimes. Her hair was night-dark, and when she moved, it looked like tiny stars glimmered in it. The woman’s skin was more like the king’s though. Leith looked like he’d been forever in the sun and was as dark as bog-soaked wood.

Quietly, Eilidh told her, “You look like Mother’s face, but you have Father’s skin.”

Over the years, Iana and Eilidh had become close, and by the time that Iana confessed that she’d been plucked from the sea and raised by human parents, a fisherman and his wife, Eilidh had already figured it out. She kept that secret—and the secret that Iana had a daughter.

As Eilidh told the story to her brother and betrothed, Torquil interrupted, “The missing heir to the fae kingdom was raised where?”

“In a small village on one of the islands.”

“How did she hide what she was?” Rhys asked.