Heart of the Fae (The Otherworld #1)(65)

Or maybe he was simply so starved for attention he couldn’t help himself. She was the first person to see him as a man, not a monster.

How could he stop?

Eamonn leaned down, eyes darting between her wide gaze and pouting lips. He’d never noticed her lips before. Berry red, thinner than most but still pleasing. Would she taste like the raspberry color staining her mouth?

“Master?” Cian’s voice cut through the silence, jolting him to his feet and back to reality. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s been an unexpected complication.”

“How so?”

“It’s the visiting Unseelie, sir. He’s requesting an audience, demanding really, and said he won’t take no for an answer.” Cian rubbed the side of his head. “He nearly took my ear off pulling at it.”

“Bran,” Eamonn grumbled. He glanced back at Sorcha, who clutched the furs to her chest. Her eyes were too wide, her chest heaving.

That was the fear he’d expected. He should’ve known that although she may someday trust him, she was unlikely to ever want him. What a fool he was.

Eamonn nodded and ducked out of the room. He’d made enough of a scene to want to hide from her for the rest of his existence. Bran had done the right thing by causing a mess only Eamonn could fix.

Damned Unseelie usually ended up being right.





Chapter Nine





THE UNSEELIE COURT





Sorcha moved permanently into the green room after her incident at the cliff. Boggart panicked, rushing around the hut and shattering plates until Sorcha caught her and explained the faerie was coming with her. That soothed her troubled mind although she didn’t let go of Sorcha’s leg for a few hours.

The faeries helped get all her things to her new room. She insisted everything go the bathroom; the clothes remained in the drier bedroom. She didn’t want to ruin the pristine image by filling it with wardrobes.

Thankfully, the faeries agreed.

Sorcha spent hours in the room, enjoying the quiet solitude. Boggart mostly stayed with the other brownies in the kitchen, having found a new appreciation for a large space to work with. She brought every meal to Sorcha and spent time listening to her talk. She still didn’t speak.

The warning Macha had issued rang in Sorcha’s ears more often than not. She’d tried to find Stone for several days, but he’d disappeared. She suspected he was in one of the castle towers. Pixie had whispered the suggestion a few times, but no one would tell her which tower.

Time was ticking. Every day passing by felt like a nail in her father's coffin. She had to do something! But there wasn’t anything to do—not as long as the master of the isle hid himself from everything and everyone.

She sat on the edge of the faerie fountain, watching minnows dart towards each other. Every tiny movement flashed their silver bellies as they playfully zipped away from her fingers.

It was late, and she should be sleeping. The longer she stayed on this isle, the less she felt the need for rest. Energy sparked in the air. It made the hair on her arms stand up and her body yearn to move, to dance, to do anything other than fall asleep. Again.

There was so much more she could be doing.

“But they won’t let me,” Sorcha breathed with a sigh. “They think I’m some well-to-do lady with no need to be in the garden.”

She snorted. She had mucked stalls, pulled weeds, and stuck her hands where they shouldn’t be. The scars on her arms and legs were proof enough!

They’d heard it all. Every time she argued with them, the faeries shook their glamoured heads and sent her back to her room, or for a walk in the fresh air, or heavens forbid suggest she might need something else to eat.

Sorcha ran a hand over her soft stomach. She’d eaten enough in the past month to feed three people, and still they said she was too skinny!

A minnow swam towards her swirling finger, tapping it before dashing away.

Sorcha smiled. At least the animals were welcoming. Even a few of the sheep had taken a liking to her, and they didn’t mind when she trudged through the fields with a dirty hem. The faeries would not make her a lady. She had no use for being a lady.

All she needed was their master to agree to return to the mainland.

“Sorcha,” a voice whispered on the wind. “Sooorchaaa.”

It exhaled her name, elongating the syllables until it sounded like a long drawn out moan. Frowning, Sorcha peered into the shadows. No eyes blinked back at her, no faeries stood in her doorways.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone there?”

“Sorcha.”

“Yes?”

A soft breeze brushed against her face and stirred the hair hanging around her cheeks. This room was closed in the depths of the castles, with no windows or cracks where the wind might sneak through. A breeze was impossible.

And yet, there was.

She reached out her hand, fully expecting to meet a solid invisible body. It was not a solid beast, nor was it a faerie hiding in plain sight. This was truly air tangling around her.

Again, her name whispered through the room. This time it was accompanied by movement on the wall furthest from her. Ivy shifted in a waterfall of movement as if a hand brushed against the other side.

Sorcha rose from the fountain and gingerly made her way to the wall. She was certain there was nothing behind that wall. She’d checked a hundred times, running her hands over the plain stone as she checked for secrets the faeries may have hidden.