“The Unseelie, on the other hand, live alone, also in the Sidhe land. They're malicious beings who like to bring harm and suffering to each other and others. They are not good looking, but they can use glamor and change their appearances. While there are exceptions in the Seelie court of those who do not look human like, there are also those of the Unseelie who look mostly human, the difference being perhaps the skin tone for one, a tail or claw for the other. They also are very powerful, although they are—most of the time—malicious beings.” She paused and took a sip of her tea. It was mostly cold, and I could tell it was just a gesture.
“One day, one of the Seelie, Verenastra, the daughter of Queen Titania, who was also one of the most beautiful Sidhe in the land, ventured too far from her home. The leader of the Unseelie, Madoc, saw her wondering near his territory, which was considered an insult not to go unpunished if one had no invitation or was not under the hospitality code.
“Madoc, the malicious leader of the Unseelie, glamored himself to look like one of the low Seelie beings, to fool her and lure her into committing herself to him. You see, Madoc was very powerful and no other in his land could disguise himself as perfectly as he. He was also the one that looked least hideous—in fact, his only differences were his malicious persona, bluish skin, and a beast-like tattoo with sharp talons and yellow eyes he had on his bicep that manifested at his will. All this he concealed with glamor and Verenastra did not see through it, but he was too shocked with her beauty, too fascinated to cause her any harm when he had the chance. He wanted to know more about her, and the more he learned, the more fascinating, beautiful, and intriguing she became in his eyes.
“Madoc found himself meeting with her in secret for a very long time. Verenastra wanted him to meet her family, having dreams that they would one day be bonded and mated, but he continually refused. His glamor was excellent, but he was sure Titania would see through it and recognize who he was.
“One day, Verenastra tricked him into meeting her mother. Until the day Madoc met with Titania, Verenastra only thought Madoc was shy or afraid to meet a higher being than himself.
“Titania saw through his disguise, and exposed his true self to her daughter. Together, mother and daughter banished him, binding him to an eternity of loneliness and suffering under a deep, frozen lake. As time went on, the princess discovered she was carrying his child. By then she wondered if he really deserved an eternity of suffering for her own foolishness. It was true and clear to everyone that the Unseelie were the malicious type, but she was no longer sure that he should pay for what she was half responsible for. Indeed, she had ventured far into his land without any invitation.
“After the child was born, Queen Titania couldn't bear looking at it, so she kept it in a faraway tower of her castle, where she couldn't hear or see it but, once the child began to grow and roam the castle, Queen Titania could no longer take it. She wanted to kill it, being the abomination that it was, but Verenastra could not bear to watch her child slaughtered, so she took the child and fled and found herself standing by the lake in which she had helped imprison her lover. Without pausing to think, she dove into the freezing depths of the lake, undid the curse, and freed Madoc, but he was bitter and enraged and wanted nothing but to kill the person who had kept him under water, lonely and suffering for all that time. The only thing that kept him alive had been the curse.
“When Verenastra realized there would be no reasoning, no reconciliation, she took her child and fled the Sidhe land altogether.”
I had a flashback of the time when Dr. Michael Dean had ordered the heavy dumbbells around my ankles to see if I could breathe under water. It occurred to me then that he might have known a great deal about my origins. Someone had been feeding him information about my kind and he was testing his theories on me. It was shocking to realize that all the experiments done to me could have been done out of suspicion and not randomly like I had believed all those years.
“For years and years,” Elizabeth continued, “she and her child, Oonagh, who had inherited her mother's good looks and her father's bestial form as an alternative, roamed the other worlds, keeping clear of the Sidhe hunters and travelers. Dhiultadh. That's what they called her and her child. A rejected, because no one wanted to claim them.
“Meanwhile, while Madoc was recovering, Maive, Titania's dark sister plotted to take control of the Unseelie Court. Her bastard son, Finvarra, was banished from the Sidhe land after defying his mother's wishes.
“The day came when Oonag met Finvarra and decided they were in love and struck out on their own. Her mother, Verenastra, met and mated Elvilachious, the leader of the Tristan star. In the Sidhe land, Queen Titania and Queen Maive decided those unions were an insult to their power and gave permission and blessed their warriors to execute the offenders.
“Oonagh and Finvarra ran in different directions from her mother and her mate, who later on bred and started a different line altogether. Climate, culture, and the progression of time affected the rejected as much as the lack of the forbidden land did. They gained more characteristics of those occupants of the lands they frequented and lost more of the Seelie and Unseelie traits. One of which was the difficulty of conceiving a child. It reached the point that for every thousands or so of the rejected born, there was only one Seelie or Unseelie child born in the Sidhe land.
“As years became decades and decades became centuries, the rejecteds number grew and they no longer feared the Sidhe. They started giving as well as they got.
“It reached a point where the numbers of rejected being killed were almost equal the number of Seelie or Unseelie individuals disappearing, or hunting parties that never returned. Queen Titania and Queen Maeve called a meeting with the leaders of the rejected to propose a truce. I suppose they became weary of losing some of their prized and irreplaceable warriors, so they struck an accord that the rejected and the Sidhe would not—under any circumstances—strike one another without provocation. Should one of the Sidhe break the rule, they would be dealing with the wrath of their queen. The same went for the rejected.
“However, there are still many from the Seelie and Unseelie courts that do not agree with the accord and, if able to do it without being discovered, would kill one of us. Others will trick us into a bargain and take away that of which we most love.”
Elizabeth's eyes grew distant and I wondered if she thought about my father. I certainly did. I thought about my bargain with Lee and just now realized my stupendous mistake. I recalled my terms and realized how lacking they were, but there was nothing I could do about it now, after the bargain had already been done and agreed upon.
“You're telling me there are two kinds of rejected?”
“There are two Dhiultadh clans, yes. The Seelie Dhiultadh, descendants from Verenastra and Elvilachious, and the Unseelie Dhiultadh, descendants of Oonagh and Finvarra.” I arched my eyebrows when she fell silent and she smiled at me faintly. “We're descendants of Oonagh and Finvarra. Your father, in fact, was their great, great, great-grandson. He had lived a long time resisting mortal women, that's why knowledge of the bargain shocked us.”
“Do you know what he bargained for?”
“No. No one does. But he bargained with Oberon, Queen Titania's consort, so it must have been something big. No one even knew about your mother and the pregnancy until Oberon called forth the High Council.” She shrugged jerkily. I realized this was a topic that bothered her a lot. Perhaps, she had really cared about my father. “But Oberon found out anyway and demanded his due, which your father refused. It was after that, when Oberon needed witnesses to deal your father his punishment that we found out about the bargain.”
I sipped my cold tea and eyed the resentment in Elizabeth's eyes. I could see she blamed me for what happened to my father.
“Lee told me my father accused this Oberon of stealing my mother's essence. Said she hadn't been human when he met her.”
Elizabeth's eyes narrowed at me. “Is that true?”
<
br /> “That's what she told me my father's reasoning had been. That and the fact that my mother was his mate.”
Shocked, Elizabeth straightened. “What are you saying?”
“Only what Lee told me. She also said that if my mother was his mate, she couldn't tell, and that Oberon denied sending this particular human to my father. Also, that no Sidhe, Seelie or Unseelie, can interfere with a preternatural's essence. Called it a dark deed.”
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment, mulling my words over. Then she straightened and shrugged. “Lee wouldn't have lied to you. A Sidhe cannot—actually lacks the capability to—tap into someone else's essence. It's what makes every individual that… individual. To take that away, even to tap into it, means that person would need dark magic. A sorcerer of dark power would be needed in this case. A Sidhe is capable of many things, but of necromancy they are not.” She took a contemplative sip, then shook her head. “No, sorcerers are the black sheep of the preternatural. They are not welcome among any other, much less among the Sidhe royalty.”
“Lee said something along that line.”
“Oberon could have called for retribution just on such false accusations. I don't know what came into Fosch during his last few years. He wasn't acting like himself. It's surprising Oberon didn't bring that up in front of the High Council—just one more point to hold against us.” She sipped from her tea, her eyes distant, a flicker of grief in her eyes.
I left her to her thoughts for a time and finished the two remaining cookies on the plate, manners be damned.
“The alternative form, the one Oonagh got from her father, is that of a six-legged bear-like animal?”
“Yes. How did you know?” I could see the wheels turning in her head. She was wondering if I could become one.
I shuddered inwardly. God forbid.
But that meant that Vincent was also a descendant of Oonagh and Finvarra.
“I saw one a few nights ago.”
Her look became skeptical. “It must have been Vincent. Only he is foolish enough to go strutting like that among the humans.” The tone of her voice didn't go unnoticed. I wondered if there was some friction between the two.
“I couldn't tell.” I shrugged noncommittally. “How many of us are out there?”
“Like you?” She put emphasis on the two words. “I never heard about any offspring of a human and a rejected before. On the other hand, there are a few thousand of us scattered around the worlds. It used to be that we bred like rabbits once, but for these past few centuries, the capability of producing offspring deteriorated and became somewhat a rare event.” She paused briefly with a frown, “I don't know how many there are from the Seelie Dhiultadh, but they breed with other species and dilute their Sidhe genes, so they don't have trouble reproducing.”
Was that disgust I heard in her voice? Hmm. I was beginning to realize that this woman had serious prejudice problems. She didn't like me, and I had this itch that it went deeper than me being just different.
“If the rejected are so keen in staying incognito, how come no one ever tried getting me out of the PSS? I mean, put aside my disgusting status of half human, what about my other half?” There. The million-dollar question.
She looked at me seriously, her expression remote, a little cold. “You exposed yourself when you ripped yourself out of your mother's womb. The rejected, out of respect for your father's sacrifice, decided not to kill you outright. The High Council had a meeting and decided one of us would take care of you, discover which traits you inherited from your father, then have another meeting once you reached puberty. Once you did and did not develop an alternative form and your aura remained human, we figured you didn't have enough to expose us.” Ignoring the narrowing of my eyes, Elizabeth continued, “Besides, once the Scientists finished running their tests on you and all they could find were some talons, speed, and strength, they would soon realize we were not the dangerous, all-powerful phenomena they had heard about. They would cease trying to capture one of us, or at least lessen the effort.” She raised her eyebrows, her expression earnest, as if she really wanted me to understand her point. “It was your father's fault they got all stirred up in the first place. It's only fair you should be the one to fix it; besides, you should be thankful we let you live.”
I was flabbergasted. She was serious. “None of you thought about vouching for me, claiming me as their own and getting me out of there?” Even as I asked I knew the answer. Bitter as it was, no one wanted to expose themselves for a child they considered an abomination. For a group of people considered abomination by their own kind, they sure were hypocrites.
She shrugged daintily.
A sudden realization struck me. “You worked as a geneticist. The periodic blood work you ran on me, was to determine what I had and what I didn't. You were examining my genes, figuring which traits I had inherited from my father.”
Elizabeth took another sip of her cold tea, but the silence was all the confirmation I needed.
My eyes narrowed in anger. They not only left me for the wolves, but they did it to cover their scent while the wolves were busy ravaging me and they took cover. Logan was wrong, Archer had known about me all along.
I realized one thing at that moment: the rejected did not know I had much more than just talons, speed, and aggression.
Would they have tried to kill me if they'd known how much of my father I had really inherited? I believed they would. I thought about Vincent. If he had read my file—which Roland had confirmed they did—then he knew I had inherited much more.
Maybe he was on my side after all. Regardless, I'd keep my abilities as much as I could from him. It paid to be cautious.
“You're just as cold as the PSS,” I said, scathing. “Instead of protecting an innocent child, you sacrificed her to cover your own asses.”
She huffed. “Don't be so dramatic. It was one life against thousands of others. They got our scent because of the foolishness of your father. It was only right we use the same tool that exposed us to fix the mistake. We didn't take cover in this world thousands of years ago to be hunted because one of us was stupid enough to father a child with a human.”
“So, you sacrificed that child for the sake of others. What about the child? Haven't you taken into consideration about what kind of suffering you have put her through to keep your asses out of the fire pit? Did you stop to think that her father's mistakes were not her own? That hiding her would have made more sense?” My voice was getting louder, escalating with my anger.
“Roxanne. There's no need for the drama. This is not about you. We would have done it had it been any other child. It just happened to be you,” she huffed impatiently and got up to answer the buzzing intercom.
I got up too and shrugged on my coat. “No need to bother yourself. That's my ride,” I told her and opened the back door of the kitchen. I stopped under the threshold and said, “So, if I place a call to the PSS now and they happen by and take your daughter away, would you leave her there or expose yourself to get her back? Or would you just kill her instead and take her out of the picture altogether?”
I didn't have to wait for the answer; I saw it as clear as daylight in her alarmed, terrified expression. Like I said, now that I looked with new eyes, I could see Elizabeth had never loved me in her life. Never cared, not one bit.
Chapter Sixty-Four
I met Tommy by the gate and we hugged, longer than called for, but he seemed to know I needed it. I didn't answer his inquiry about who lived in that big mansion, and he let it slide. We went out for dinner and we talked about the past. Well, he talked about his past; I evaded most of mine. I explained that Elizabeth had lied to me about my father and that when I was twelve I had to leave. I did not elaborate, and I let Tommy believe I had been with my father instead of a bunch of mad scientists bent on discovering everything they could about my species by means of brutal force. Tommy, bless him, could tell I did not want to talk about it and he didn't push or pressure me, so we talked
mostly about him and Vicky and their high school and college time. They had separated during college, but they had kept in touch and got together every now and then.
After dinner, Tommy and I went to his newly-acquired house in East Sacramento. He talked about how he was going to convert the garage into his work place, and showed me around his house, which was almost bare, with tools and half-done work littering the living room and kitchen table. He showed me the rocking chair he was working on, a gift for his sister.
We prepared some coffee together and sat to drink it outside on the porch. It was cold and late, but neither of us complained. The sky was mostly clear, and we watched the million stars shining brightly.
“Remember when we would lie on the grass and see who could make the most figures from the stars?” I asked him.
“Hmmm. And clouds. I won most of the time.”
I chuckled at the lie. “You most certainly did not. I was the one who came up with most figures. You and Vicky would hardly make one or two.”
“That's because we let you,” he said, smiling. “You remember what the winner's prize was?”
Yeah, a kiss.
“Vicky would always have a boy in mind, and, well, I liked it better when you came on to me,” he laughed, a sheepish smile on his face. “So, you see, I always won.”
“Pervert,” I said indignantly, but smiled at the memory.
An hour later, a black sedan parked in front of the house. I watched as Vincent climbed out of the driver's side. I got up and so did Tommy.
I felt warmth from the protective way Tommy stood by my side and shot him a reassuring glance.
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