Prince of Air and Darkness (34 page)

He arched a golden brow. “Was that a reproof, Daughter?”

Kiera told herself to think before she spoke. The last thing she wanted was to goad Finvarra into trying to become part of her life. “No. I just . . . I just want Hunter back.”

“Why? After all he has done, I should have thought you would dance on his grave.”

“I love him,” she answered simply.

“Ah. I see.” He frowned, his lips pushed out in something that was almost a pout. “You truly do favor your mother in all ways.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you are mortal to your core. I might have thought that being my daughter, you would at least exhibit some fey traits. But you are homely, and have no special stamina, and are subject to such foolishness as love. I see nothing of me in you.”

Kiera was not overly distressed to hear this, but she figured she’d keep that thought to herself when her father held Hunter’s life and her future happiness in his hands.

“You do realize that the fey are not capable of what you mortals call love,” Finvarra continued.

“So my mother has repeatedly told me.” She thought of the sacrifice Hunter had been willing to make, and she couldn’t help doubting that there was any truth to this assertion. And she thought about the look in Conan’s eye when he put his arm around her mother. No, if the fey didn’t feel love, it was because of some cultural restriction—one it was possible to set aside.

Finvarra smiled. “Yes, I can imagine she’s told you any number of the aspects of the fey she finds unappealing.”

“I want Hunter back whether he’s capable of loving me or not. He’s a good man, and he deserves another chance.”

“The Unseelie are incapable of being good. It is not in their natures.”

“Well then Hunter isn’t Unseelie.”

Finvarra fell silent, regarding her with penetrating eyes. Kiera caught his gaze and then became trapped by it. She shivered, despite the blazing fire, for she suddenly sensed the power of the man who had fathered her, sensed the magic that clung to him, sensed the ancient wisdom his shallow, selfish facade hid.

Finally, Finvarra blinked and Kiera was able to look away. His voice when he spoke held a hint of seduction. “And what would you be willing to sacrifice to have your lover restored to you?” he asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

The air shimmered, and then he held out his hand. A single seed lay in his palm. “You are a mortal woman, doomed to die. But you are also blood of my blood. You have but to eat this pomegranate seed, and that part of you which is mortal will be purged away. You—and the child you carry—will be immortal.”

Kiera gaped at him, and he smiled.

“You will take up your place in Faerie. Being my daughter, you will want for nothing and will be paid deference by all the Seelie Court. I would gladly bestow this gift on you and on my grandchild. But you will have to give up Hunter Teague, for I will tolerate no creature of the Unseelie Court in my own realm.”

“He’s not a creature! He’s a
man
!”

Finvarra grinned. “If you do not realize the two are one and the same, then you have not been with enough men, my child.”

Anger that he dared make jokes while a man’s life hung in the balance thrummed through Kiera’s blood. Only what felt like superhuman willpower kept her from answering back sharply. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek and tried to force herself to calm down. If she let her temper get the better of her, she might say something Finvarra would make her regret.

Kiera shook her head. “I don’t want to be a part of your world,” she told her father. “Nothing I’ve seen of Faerie has made me think this is a place I’d want to live, and nothing I’ve seen of the fey has made me think I want myself or my child to be one. Especially not if by accepting your offer I condemn Hunter to death. I want a father for my child.” Her voice hitched on a sob and her eyes misted. “I want Hunter.”

Finvarra closed his palm, and when he opened his hand once more the seed was gone. He shook his head. “Truly I am glad that the fey are not capable of love, for it makes one do unimaginably foolish things. Teague’s mortal blood seems to have similarly corrupted him, for when I told him I would not let him near you unless he gave up his own immortality, he did not hesitate.”

Kiera’s heart did a strange flip. “You
what
?”

Finvarra leaned forward in his chair, a faint smile on his lips. “I have enough experience with mortals that your requests . . . nay,
demands
 . . . were not unexpected. If I restored Teague to you in his immortal state, then chances were high that he would abandon you when you began to look too old. So I told him that he had two choices: he could retain his immortality and never see you again. Or he could give it up, and I would give him to you if you wanted him. He chose the latter.”

Kiera was stunned. “So, this was all some kind of test? You never really meant to kill him?”

He shrugged. “I’d have killed him if you didn’t want him so much. And I still will, if you do not agree to one concession.”

Kiera eyed him suspiciously. “What concession is that?”

“I acknowledge your right to refuse my offer of immortality, but you may not choose for my grandchild. When the child turns eighteen, you will bring her to me so that I may make her the same offer.”

Her?
Kiera wondered. Could Finvarra possible know if she carried a boy or a girl?

“Are we agreed?” Finvarra prompted.

Kiera didn’t like being forced into anything, but she had to admit Finvarra had a point. Who was she to deny her child the chance to be immortal? She’d just have to be very sure to fully explain the trade-offs involved.

“Agreed,” she said.

He held out his hand, and Kiera stood to take it. He clasped her hand in both of his, then bent to kiss the top of her head. “Go in peace, Daughter,” he said. Then he swept out of the room, leaving Kiera standing nervous and uncertain.

Moments after Finvarra had left, the door opened again, and Kiera’s eyes met with the most welcome sight she had ever seen. “Hunter!” she cried, and she flung herself into his arms and reveled in the warmth of his embrace.

Chapter 18

Hunter had insisted Kiera get some sleep before starting the return journey. She’d protested, telling him she’d been warned against eating or drinking while in Faerie. She was desperately thirsty and eager to get home. However, Hunter was certain Finvarra had specialties from the human world stashed in his palace somewhere, and he demanded Kiera be brought something safe to drink. After some grumbling, one of the Daoine Sidhe brought him some bottled water, which he tested himself before giving to Kiera. She had gratefully drunk her fill, and then fallen asleep on the couch, her head pillowed in his lap.

Hunter couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her. He ran his fingers gently through her tangle of red curls, listening to the soothing rhythm of her breaths, looking at those sweetly parted lips he so loved to kiss. She slept so peacefully on his lap, as though she felt utterly safe in his presence. Whatever doubts she’d once had about his motives were gone, and that thought filled him with warmth and joy.

Although he heard the door crack open behind him, heard the near-silent footsteps approaching, Hunter couldn’t take his eyes off Kiera’s dear, beautiful face.

“You seem genuinely fond of her,” Finvarra said, keeping his voice low enough not to wake her.

Hunter nodded but still didn’t look at the High King. “I think the word is ‘love.’ It wasn’t something I’d ever expected to feel. But now that I feel it, I can’t imagine how my life ever felt complete before.”

Finvarra leaned forward, resting his forearms on the back of the sofa and regarding his daughter’s sleeping frame with undisguised curiosity. “I’ve always wondered about love,” he said. “The feeling appears to be more valuable to mortals than anything but life itself, and yet we fey manage to get along just fine without it. I think perhaps it is a protective mechanism, that with immortality comes the inability to love. Love creates such . . . volatility in the mortal race. Such passion, such commitment, such pretensions to permanence. And yet it truly is nothing more than an illusion. One that an immortal cannot abide.”

“I loved her before you took my immortality,” Hunter reminded him. “And the phooka loves her mother.” Hunter had seen that the first time he’d met them, though he had been surprised when Kiera told him her mother had accepted Conan’s love. He’d thought sure Cathy hated the fey too much to let one into her heart.

Finvarra raised both golden eyebrows. “Oh? I had heard no rumor to that effect.”

“If you saw them together, you wouldn’t need to rely on rumors. I don’t think it’s impossible for the fey to love.”

Finvarra shrugged as though the issue were hardly important. “Perhaps you are right. But it is at the least very rare.” He gave Hunter a pointed look, daring him to argue, but Hunter couldn’t help agreeing with him. Finvarra nodded thoughtfully. “From what I have seen of love, it is capable of causing both great joy and great sorrow.”

“Yes. Kiera and I have already experienced both extremes.”

“Although she will not accept my offer of immortality, she is still my daughter.” Finvarra’s eyes turned cold and hard, and Hunter found himself suddenly unable to look away. “See to it that from this day forward, she experiences nothing but the
joys
of love. You are alive only by my sufferance, and should you cause my child pain, you will live only a short while to regret it. Are we understood?”

Hunter was finally able to blink. An electric shiver ran down his spine, a shiver that suggested magic filled the air. Finvarra’s threat went above the merely verbal, and Hunter would be bound by his answer. He took a deep breath and answered carefully. “I can’t promise I will never cause her pain. Love is not perfect.
I
am not perfect. But I will do everything in my power to make her happy. Will that suffice?”

Finvarra cocked his head and regarded Hunter with an intense scrutiny that seemed to delve into his very soul. Then the High King’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “I think it will do.”

He started to rise, but Hunter called him back. “I have a favor to ask of you,” he said when Finvarra inquired.

“A favor? I believe I’ve granted you quite a number of favors already. Perhaps you should endeavor to be satisfied with what you have.”

Hunter ignored the High King’s quelling look. “You have ordered me to make your daughter happy. I will have much more luck doing so if I’m alive.”

Finvarra held his hands out to his sides in innocence. “You seem to be alive and well. Or is that an illusion of some kind?”

The mockery in Finvarra’s voice grated on Hunter’s nerves, but he swallowed any hint of protest. “The Queen will want her revenge against me, when she is corporeal once more.”

“If you could convince your lady love to remain in Faerie with you, I could keep you both safe with ease.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. However, you could claim to have executed me as you originally planned.”

The look on Finvarra’s face was distinctly dangerous. “You suggest I lie? Do you know nothing about the practices of the Seelie Court?”

Actually, he did. Although he suspected the Seelie fey were as capable of lying as any other living creature, they prided themselves on never resorting to the outright lie. When pressed, they preferred to deceive by careful wording or omission.

“You took my immortality,” Hunter reminded the High King. “I am now a mortal man, doomed to die. It seems you can claim to have killed me without it being an outright lie.”

Finvarra thought about that a moment, then nodded. “Very well, then. I shall send word to the Queen that I have dealt harshly with her erstwhile son. I might suggest, however, that you and Kiera take up residence somewhere far away from any Faerie circles. If one of the Queen’s creatures should accidentally catch sight of you, no amount of artful dissembling will save you.”

Finvarra circled the couch until he was standing in front of them, looking down at Kiera’s face as Hunter had been doing for so long. The High King bent and laid the back of his hand very softly against Kiera’s cheek. She did not stir at the touch, nor at the faint tingle of magic in the air. Hunter looked at Finvarra suspiciously. “What did you do?” he asked.

Finvarra smiled. “I merely gave her my blessing. Something her mother would never allow me to do once she’d met me with unclouded mind.”

Hunter had no response, and returned his gaze to Kiera’s face as Finvarra quietly left the room. When the door snicked shut, Kiera’s eyelashes fluttered and she murmured sleepily. Hunter’s heart ached with love. Even knowing he should let her sleep longer, he couldn’t resist bending to touch his lips to hers. She returned the kiss hungrily, wrapping her arms around his neck.

When the kiss finally ended, they were both breathless, and it was all Hunter could do not to strip off her clothes and take her right there in her father’s reception room. She smiled, her eyes shining with joy. “Enough napping,” she said. “It’s time to go home.” She wriggled against him, sending his pulse soaring, before sitting up. “Much as I love your lap, I’d rather sleep in a real bed.” She yawned and stretched. Her cheeks still looked pale from exhaustion, her expression somewhat pinched, but at least she didn’t look ready to collapse in the first gust of wind.

Hunter drew her to her feet and gathered her into a hug, holding her tight so she could feel the inevitable effect she had on him. “When I get you to a real bed, sweetheart, I plan on making sure sleep is the
last
thing on your mind.”

Laughing, she extricated herself from his arms. She grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the door so hard he almost fell.

“Well,” she said, “if that’s the case, then you’d better hurry up.”

Hunter didn’t have to be told twice.

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