“I was just checking in …” she began as Arlo rolled his eyes at her.
“Caley,” I said, because I felt like I needed to get out of there. “I don’t have any clothes.”
“Clothes?” she asked, still dressed in her waitress uniform, her dark hair in a messy bun atop her head. “You want clothes?”
“I’ll give you some money,” Sadhbh said, nodding in Caley’s direction. “Take our new friend here shopping and get her some outfits.”
“I just worked a double!” Caley whined, and paused when Arlo whipped her a violent look.
“When the president’s old lady asks you to do something, you say yes ma’am, and hop to it,” he snarled and his sister sighed, tucking a few loose strands of hair back with her blue painted fingernails.
“Yes, sir,” she said, but there was a hint of sarcasm in the way she said sir that I liked. “Alright, Gardien du Voile, why don’t you, um, clean up a bit and I’ll take you out?”
I nodded and rose to my feet, glancing over at Amelie.
“Would you like to come, too?” I asked, because I had vague memories of girlfriends and shopping and … my brain was craving something that resembled normalcy, whatever that was anymore. I couldn’t decide if shopping for clothes was normal … if fucking a horned god was normal … or if they both were.
What I did know was that I had a whole eternity of secrets to unravel and no surefire way to go about it except …
Except maybe one …
Arlo and Reece were too hotheaded to be of any use today, so I tagged along with le Gardien to a small boutique at the edge of the swamp. It was a trashy little place on the outside, but the clothes sold inside weren’t so bad. And anyway, it was the only shop this far outside the city limits. We could’ve driven into town, but ten minutes in Caley’s car and Ciarah was already starting to feel sick from the effects of the iron.
One positive of growing up in the modern world, most of us alive now had twice—if not three times—the tolerance to iron that our ancestors did. But Le Gardien du Voile? Even if her soul was young and fragile, her body was ancient and used to the old ways. Iron was poison; iron killed.
I stood outside on the porch, next to an old man in a rocking chair who was singing old blues songs and smoking a tobacco pipe. He was blind, his eyes milky and white, but I sensed the power in him. I didn’t know what he was, but I was keeping an eye on him, just in case. Although he did seem more inclined to stay draped in his old chair, watching a sunny day in the bayou that he couldn’t see.
“Hello.” Ciarah spoke from beside me and I startled. How had she just snuck up on me so quietly? When I glanced down though, it wasn't me she was speaking to.
The old man paused in his song and his head tilted in Ciarah's general direction.
“Who dat?” he asked, his milky eyes staring out at nothing between our heads.
“What are you?” The living goddess beside me spoke with genuine curiosity, ignoring the man's rhetorical question. Undoubtedly if I could smell the power on him, so too could she. His old blind man routine wasn't fooling anyone here.
“Dat be a verra rude question for an ol' man, cher.” He hedged Ciarah's question like a pro, so he had to be some form of faerie. “Come see, girl.” His gnarled fingers beckoned Ciarah closer to him.
An unfamiliar surge of concern swept through me as she took a step closer, and my hand closed over her thin arm to prevent her moving toward the strange fae.
“Kill,” she murmured, glancing up at me through those lush black eyelashes of hers.“I'm fine.”
Gently, she detached my hand from her arm and bent down close to the ‘old’ man.
This girl, this waif-like damaged creature, she was my goddess. My Gardien du Voile. When she gave an order, we had no choice but to follow her wishes.
Although she had not ordered me to back off, the implication was there and I had no desire to feel whatever Donal had when he dared question her.
Before my eyes, the unknown fae creature engaged Le Gardien in a rapid whispered conversation, none of which I was able to pick up on despite my fae hearing.
“Pleasure to meet you, sir,” she finally said in a normal volume, as she straightened and held out her hand for the man to shake. “I better go back inside before Caley and Amelie pick out too many racy outfits.” She smiled at me then, an open, excited smile that transformed her whole face, and I swear to the Veil, my heart straight stopped.
I wasn't all together sure how long I stood there with that same dumbstruck expression on my face after Ciarah disappeared back into the store, but my trance was broken by the coughing laughter of the old man fae.
“Seigneur de L'hiver,” he nodded to me in greeting, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“Not yet,” I ground out from behind clenched teeth.“She has not yet named a Lord of Winter.”
“Ah, but soon. Ça c’est bon. The wheel be turnin' once more, an' we must all decide if we want on, or off.” He peered at me with those milky eyes. “Best you be on, boi.”
Trying my best not to snarl at the man, I nodded tightly. “Je connais. I know.”
“Word o' warnin' then, Seigneur de L'hiver.” The man drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair in a staccato rhythm. “Dem dat held her all deese long years. Dey ain't gonna give her up wit'out a fight, y'hear?”
The conviction in his words made me narrow my eyes in suspicion. “Do you know something?”
“Ol' Blue know a great many thing. On dis, you can trust. Trouble is a'comin' and dat girl be it's target.” The man, Old Blue, shook his head and clicked his tongue, and I found it increasingly difficult not to rip his riddle-filled head clean off his shoulders with my bare hands.
My teeth creaked as I ground them together. Hard. “Do you have any advice?” I asked, as politely as I could possibly manage.
“Only one thing y'can do, boi. Get dat girl her thoughts back. Quick smart, y'hear?” Old Blue sighed heavily and rapped his walking cane on the wooden slats beneath our feet. “What's dat over dere?” he asked, gesturing with his stick at something behind me.
Turning toward where he was pointing, I saw nothing but cypress trees.
“What's what …?” I started to ask, but quickly realized I’d just fallen for the oldest trick in the book. When I turned back to the storefront once more, not a trace of Old Blue remained except the gentle sway of his recently vacated seat.
Almost as though I'd imagined the whole damn thing.
My skin tingled with the intensity of Killian's glare as he entered the little boutique, but I didn't turn to look. Instead I cooed and nodded in the way that seemed socially appropriate for when another girl tried on a cute outfit. Or, that's what I was guessing based on my observations of Caley and Amelie.
Whether it was yet another sinkhole in my personality and memory, or whether none of the manifestations of me had really been into shopping, it didn't matter. I was a quick study, and could learn how to act by emulating others.
“Gardien,” Killian's lightly accented voice growled in my ear, and his huge hand closed over my upper arm once more.
A wild shiver ricocheted through me at his touch, his hand almost big enough to totally encircle my arm, and ice-cold despite the balmy weather.
“Yes, Kill?” I blinked up at him, the picture of innocence. Of course, I knew he wanted me to fill him in on what the seer had told me. But something about his cool, calm, collected vibe made me badly want to ruffle his feathers.
“Tell me,” he ordered, but his eyes pleaded. Here was a man who knew his damn place in the pecking order, whether he liked it or not.
“Not here,” I replied with a tiny shake of my head. I wasn't totally sure, but I could have sworn I'd seen a sprite lurking around the front door just moments ago. Lower than rats, they may be, but they could still understand us when we spoke. And relay that information to others, if they chose to.
Killian stared down at me a moment longer, then nodded tightly and looked over to Cal
ey and Amelie.
“Ladies, are we almost done here?” he asked impatiently. “We have important shit to sort out back at the clubhouse.”
“Almost.” Caley grinned back at him and I rolled my eyes. I'd barely known the girl a couple of days, but I knew her. Which was why I wasn't terribly surprised at her next suggestion.
“Ciarah just needs to pick out some underwear and try them on. You don't mind helping her, do you Kill? Just to hurry things along?” She batted her mascaraed eyelashes at the huge biker man and his eyes narrowed at her.
“It'd be my pleasure, mon chéri.” He smiled at me a little wickedly. Where for the most part, the guys around here used cher in the Cajun way—pronounced sha—Killian sometimes slipped into true French which made me curious about his background. My toes curled at the sexy way his mouth delivered those syllables.
Kill swept his ice-blue gaze over my body, sizing me—literally—before turning to the racks of brightly colored lace, satin and silks. His long fingers flipped through the coathangers with confidence, and before I knew what the hell was happening, I had both hands full.
“Changing room,” he prompted, giving me a small push toward the curtained alcoves at the back of the store.
Much to my curiosity, when I entered the small cubicle and hung the hangers on the little hooks, Killian followed and pulled the curtain shut behind us.
“You can tell me now,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, his leather jacket creaking with the motion. I cocked my head at him and then reached down to put my fingers underneath the bottom edge of my borrowed t-shirt. “No, mon chéri,” he said, the edges of his knuckles playing against the warm skin of my belly as he reached out to take hold of the fabric. “Not until I leave the room.”
My belly … or her belly? Because … this isn’t the body I was born to, now is it? But then, birth was relative, wasn’t it? A soul entering the child of an infant, newly taken of its first breath, or me … entering the body on a last dying scream …
I blinked away the memories and started to pull my shirt up anyway. Killian stubbornly fisted his hand in the fabric and kept it from riding up, and I frowned.
“Call me confused,” I said with a slight smile, “because I may very well be the most confused living thing on this planet or any other, but isn’t modesty a human invention? Isn’t nudity as natural as breath amongst the fae?”
Killian’s teeth and jaw clenched tight, and I knew then that I was right.
He let go of the shirt and I pulled it off, exposing my breasts to the cool air of the shop, the old air conditioner blasting, the ceiling wet with tiny drops of condensation. I dropped it on the floor and reached for one of the bras, my fingers playing against the cream colored satin for a moment. I didn’t have bras like this before … in either before, really. In one of my befores, there were no such things. This was a human invention, something of this world. The Veil Keeper’s ancient skin had never once felt the caress of undergarments like this. And my other self … the self I was starting to realize was the me-me part, the soul as Sadhbh had said … she couldn’t afford things like this.
“Put it on for me,” I told Killian and heard him suck in a sharp breath. I looked over at him and found his ice-blue eyes lit up, the pulse in the side of his neck thundering.
“You want me to put your bra on for you, la petite chose?” he asked, and while the words were calm enough, the fire in his gaze was unmistakable.
“It’ll go faster if you help me into it,” I said, lifting the small scrap of fabric from the satiny hanger and passing it his way. He took it on a single, inked finger, letting it dangle there between us as he sucked in a deep breath and cursed in French.
“As you command, Le Gardien,” he said, his voice dropping to a low whisper as I turned away and faced my reflection in the mirror. It was the first time I’d really done that since waking up in the alley, and for a moment, I forgot to breathe.
There was nothing about the face that stared back at me that was familiar … those eyes … that hair … The Veil Keeper was beautiful, even in her glamoured form, with milky white skin, sapphire eyes, and long dark hair with a green streak near the front. It trailed down her … my? … body in gentle waves, curling around my ass in the borrowed white leggings I’d taken from Caley.
“This isn’t me,” I said as I lifted my hands up and palmed my own breasts. They were small but perky, full for their size with erect pink nipples. As I ran my thumbs over them, sensation swept through me and made me shiver. “This isn’t what I look like.”
“It’s what you look like now,” Killian said, leaning down toward me. He was so much taller. I could see him in the mirror, towering over me, his eyes as blue as mine but pale, like a winter sky. Mine … hers … ours were a deep, rich color, like a lake in summer, all the way at the bottom where the sun just barely shines. “Rebirth is never easy. Why do you think most souls choose to forget who they once were?”
“I’m much taller than this,” I said, standing on my tippy toes as Killian leaned over my shoulder, his raven dark hair sliding across his forehead, his tongue running over his lower lip. For a moment there, I thought he might slide it down the side of my neck, make my skin pebble with goose bumps. I thought he might take me by the hips and pull my ass toward him, shove my leggings out of the way …
But Killian wasn’t Arlo or Reece—he was a gentleman.
Carefully, he extracted my fingers from my breasts and slid the bra straps over my hands, up my arms, trailing his fingertips against my skin and making me sigh.
“I’m much taller, and I have bigger breasts,” I told him, and he chuckled against my ear, the sound low and deep as he slid the bra up to my chest and then dragged his fingertips across my rib cage to my back, making my breath catch. “And I’m blonde, I know that for sure.”
“You were taller, and you were blonde …” Killian said as he leaned back, and I watched in disappointment at our mirror selves as he pulled away and clasped the bra for me. “And the breasts … Well, I find it hard to believe this is much of a downgrade.”
“Ey!” a voice called from outside the changing room, the sharp rapping of something against the wood frame of the little cubicle. “You two better not be up to anything nasty in dere! You stain it, you buy it!”
Killian’s face wrinkled up with distaste, and he sneered, but I just smiled and turned toward him, pushing him through the curtain and into the store.
“I’ll be out in a while,” I said, because having him help me with the bras … well, now I could see his hesitation in not wanting me to take off my shirt.
I tried a few of the bras, but decided I didn’t quite like the feel of most. I made myself choose two anyway, just in case I felt like I wanted to wear them later, and let myself out of the dressing room.
“Damn near thought you died in there,” Amelie said, sitting at the bar in the corner—yes, there was a bar in the corner of the clothing shop. I didn’t remember much about my previous life, but I remembered New Orleans, and I knew the bayou, and that seemed about right. She held a bright blue drink in her hand and was sipping it slowly, watching me with honey-brown eyes. “You find something you liked in there?” she asked with a long, exaggerated wink.
I ignored her and put the bras and underwear I’d chosen on the counter. There were other things in there, too, lingerie and the like. I didn’t need those things, but I wanted them. And Sadhbh had said to buy me what I wanted.
I didn’t think Killian would mind when he saw what they were.
I headed back into the racks and noticed that Caley was missing.
“Dressing room,” Amelie called out to me and I smiled, taking my moment free from the influence of both girls to grab some items that made me feel more like … well, fucking me. I chose low-slung skinny jeans, black t-shirts, and a varied assortment of other casual items from the used section of the store. Not that I had anything against the new stuff, but … there was something about a faded pair of jeans and an
old tee that said … Ciarah.
Because whoever I was then, at least I knew one thing.
I knew my name.
And there was power in that.
#
Unpacking all my new clothes into the closet hadn’t been too difficult as there were already several empty hangers just waiting for me to use. The drawers were somewhat more populated with Arlo’s things, but I did a little rearranging to empty out a drawer for myself.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you weren’t kidding,” the green-eyed man muttered as he stopped abruptly in the doorway and stared.
“About what?” I blinked at him, trying to keep my eyes on his face rather than his toned upper body. He was shirtless. Again. Was he deliberately testing me? Probably.I deserved it after leaving him high and dry earlier.
A grin curved over my face, remembering his shocked outrage when he realized I wasn’t finishing him off. I bet there had been a long cold shower after the girls and I had left with Kill.
“This is my room, Ciarah. There are plenty of others you can choose from that won't have sprites lurking in them.” He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face as he flopped down onto the bed.
“So, you go choose a new one. I like this one.” I shrugged a shoulder at him and turned back to my bags of shopping.
“No,” he snapped back, his eyes narrowing.
“Well then.” I smiled. “Looks like we’re sharing. Roomie.”
Not totally sure why I said that … A small frown creased my brow as I inspected my memory for what the hell a ‘roomie’ was, but came up blank.
There was a long pause before he responded. “Kill says you had a run-in with someone at the clothing store?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “Curiosity eating at him, is it?”
“Something like that.” Arlo tightened his lips as his huge arms folded under his head. His eyes on me didn't seem to blink, but I didn't mind. In fact, I liked being watched.
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