“Your father told me that Ninetroir—”
My stomach lurches. Nope. Can’t handle his true name. Not right now.
“Nine,” I correct.
That doesn’t hurt so bad.
“Your father told me that Nine touched you. That he claimed you.”
“I thought he did.”
“Okay. Well... listen, ‘touch’ has a very different meaning to the fae. With permission, even the simplest contact, skin to skin, has power. Between mates… it can be magical and I’m fully human. I can see through glamour, but magic? It never affected me until I let Ash touch me the first time.”
She sounds so wistful, like she’s drawing on a treasured memory. Her lips quirk slightly.
That’s not helping me, either.
“Callie. Is there a reason why you chased after me? Because, honestly, I’d rather be alone right now.”
With a sideways look at the building, I know I’m right when I guessed that Nine sent her after me. It’s daylight. Sun streaming everywhere. Even if he wanted to follow after me, he couldn’t, and I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought of that when I sprinted for the elevator.
“Sweetie, you spent so long trying to bring him back to you, to break the nasty queen’s spell on him… give him time. You remember what it was like for Ash. The fae don’t like to let anyone see them weak. He’ll get over it. You just need to be there for him.”
She makes a ton of valid points. The Ash who came out of the stasis spell was argumentative and overcompensated by making all his crazy decrees. He calmed down after a couple of days had passed, so that within a week or so, he was the protective, kind, thoughtful fae male that I’ve come to know.
But Nine...
The part that kills me is that his reaction is spot-on. Maybe not for the Dark Fae I’ve known as an adult, but the Shadow Man who had begrudgingly watched me for years?
That wasn’t my mate I walked out on. That was a relic from my past.
And maybe I’m the idiot for believing that he could ever want me the way I want him.
I want to cry. I hurt so bad, I want to cry. But I don’t, because tears have never solved anything for me before and, when I feel this way, I’ve always just lashed out.
So I do.
“He wants to leave me,” I snap. “Didn’t he tell you that?”
Callie winces, but she doesn’t back off.
“Bonded fae… soul mates. They can’t leave their mates one the bond is finalized. He’s worried for you, Riley. Like your father, he wants to get rid of every single danger out there before he can be sure you’re safe. He’s just processing this badly. He needs to be with you more than ever.”
I snort. “You don’t know Nine. If he thinks it’s for my own good, he’ll go.”
That falls in line with the new and improved Nine, too. Especially if he thinks he’s helping me, I’d never be able to stop him.
“He won’t be able to be separated from you for long. Even if he goes back, he’ll return for you. He’ll have to. He’s your ffrindau.”
“Tell that to him,” I huff. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already gone.”
“You’re serious.” Callie looks confused. “When a fae fully bonds with his chosen soul mate, nothing can stop them from protecting them. Don’t you have faith in him?”
I thought I did, but that’s not the point. On a rough exhale, the truth slips out. “Honestly, I don’t even know if he still wants to be mine.”
“Well, it’s not like he can take it back or anything.”
I shrug.
Who the hell knows?
“But didn’t you already...”
“Didn’t we what?”
“You know.” And then Callie does something that I would never have imagined her doing in a hundred years. Curling her fingers toward her thumb, she forms a circle with one hand. The other? She folds her fingers into a fist, save for the pointer finger. Then, with an impish expression, she pokes her pointer finger through the open hole a few times, raising her eyebrows at me as she does it.
I blink.
No. Way.
In my surprise, I blurt out, “What the hell are you doing?”
“Oh. Okay. Maybe you don’t know. You see, when two people love each other very, very much, they will—”
White noise fills my head as a rush of embarrassment has my cheeks flaming up.
Is she...
Oh my God.
She is.
She’s actually trying to give me a sex talk since she—very wrongly—assumes that I have no idea what her crude gesture was referring to.
A sex talk.
Really?
So, yeah. My mom’s a teensy bit late for that.
I lost my virginity when I was twelve or thirteen. It made sense at the time; I don’t regret it. My haphephobia and panic attacks were around then, but they were more manageable then since Madelaine’s murder was the trigger that really put me in a bad place—and I don’t just mean the asylum.
So long as I was the one initiating the contact, I liked to be touched. After a lifetime of feeling unloved, unwanted, and abandoned, in those few moments when I was connected to another person, I wasn’t the reject orphan who was so awful, even her mother threw her away.
I was reckless and, I admit, very, very lucky. So many things could have gone wrong since I didn’t even bother being careful. No STI’s, no pregnancy scares, nothing that was forcibly taken from a hollow girl who was all but willing to give it away.
And then Madelaine died and, despite all of Nine’s warnings, I nearly fell under Rys’s sway. I almost let him touch me—and that was one of the last times I let anyone touch me without a debilitating panic attack getting in the way.
Until Nine.
And, unless I’m really, really misunderstanding Callie, that’s what she’s expecting me to do.
Touch Nine.
Ah, hell. This is super, super awkward.
I clear my throat. “You don’t have to give me the whole birds and the bees talk. I appreciate it, but you’re a little late for that.”
That familiar flash of sadness—the recognition that she missed my entire life while trapped in Faerie—twists her pretty face for a second before she nods. “I thought I would try.”
“Appreciate it. Still, I’m good.”
“So you and Nine already—”
Oof. And I thought my overwhelming embarrassment had started to recede a bit.
I shake my head.
“Oh. Oh. I thought...”
Yeah. We both know what she thought.
Callie winces. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have pried. I just wanted to help.”
The funny thing is, despite how super embarrassing this chat was, she actually did. Since Ash made it pretty clear that he was hoping that I would give up on Nine eventually, no matter how often I reminded him that my only goal was to save my Shadow Man, he didn’t share too much about what it was like to be part of a mated pair.
An awkward discussion with my mom… this was one of those things I regretted not having while I was growing up. She might’ve been a bit late there, but this chat did what I probably wouldn’t have been able to do on my own.
It evaporated my anger, making my frustration at Nine’s reaction disappear like a puff of smoke.
I don’t think I’ll ever get her impish expression out of my mind, but that’s okay. It’s a memory I’ll be able to treasure—once the red staining my cheeks finally fades away, that is.
“That’s okay.”
“Well, I know you said you were hungry. If you want to come back upstairs, I can make you a sandwich or something. There’s still some food in the fridge. You can just tell me what you like.”
That… actually sounds kinda nice. The granola bar from this morning is a distant memory, and my talk with her has made me realize that I am starving. I’ll probably change my mind when I go back up and see that Nine is gone, but I still appreciate her offer.
“Alri
ght.”
“Really?”
I nod.
“Great. I think we have some salami or ham, a couple of types of cheeses. Cheddar? How does cheddar sound—”
As we turn the corner to head back toward the building, a male vice floats on the breeze.
“Evening, ladies.”
Hang on. I know that voice.
Even though his head is bowed, his body covered by blankets he doesn’t need since it’s the middle of April and Newport is warming up, I’m absolutely positive that, if he looked up at me, his eyes would be vivid green.
Callie spares him a glance, mumbling a soft ‘evening’ though she doesn’t even break her stride.
Me? I stop and stare.
He wasn’t there. I know he wasn’t. When I ran out the door, this whole street was clear. I know, because I’ve spent weeks waiting to see the same street sleeper take up his spot outside of our condemned building.
And now, here he is.
On the plus side, no matter how easily he blends in with his surroundings, at least I know he’s real. He’s not a figment of my imagination if Callie can see him, too.
I have a sudden urge to walk over to him, to ask him about the paper he gave me with all of his “corrections” on it. Sometimes, that long ago morning seems like it had been a dream, though all I have to do is look at the scrap I keep hidden upstairs to know that I didn’t make him up. I haven’t seen him since that day, though, and I often wondered if that was on purpose.
I take a step toward him—
Callie is oblivious.
“Come on, Riley,” she calls out to me when she senses that I’ve turned. “Let’s go.”
I throw one last curious look over my shoulder at the mysterious homeless man. Whether it’s on purpose or not, with Callie’s back turned to him, he lifts his head and meets my curious gaze.
I see the twinkle in his grass-colored, bright green eyes as he nods over at me, almost like he’s daring me to come back to him.
I haven’t forgotten about the note he passed me, or the “corrections” he made. And if Callie wasn’t itching to return upstairs, desperate to go back to her own mate, I would have taken the time to grill this stranger with all the questions and concerns that I’ve kept bottled up inside these last few weeks.
I underestimated Gillespie. I’d be a fucking moron to let another quiet threat sneak up on me.
As far as I see it, anyone who knows anything about the Shadow Prophecy is definitely a threat.
Next time, I promise. Next time I see that man, I will make him tell me how he’s involved—and what the hell he wants from me.
I learned a long time ago, no matter what, someone always wants something.
Even me.
I think of Nine and how he reached for my cheek before pulling back.
Especially me.
12
When we walk into the apartment, my dad and Nine are squaring off in the living room.
I don’t know how to react to that.
Honestly, part of me thought that Nine would already be gone, halfway back to Faerie to save his power and his strength. But he’s not.
He’s here.
The second thing I notice is that his fist is open. Sitting in the center of his palm, there’s the same pebble Nine has shown me a few times now.
The same pebble that Callie mentioned when Ash asked what Nine was doing in the apartment when we all landed here together.
Okay. So it’s obvious that we’ve walked into the middle of something. Some kind of argument between old friends, maybe, though that might be wishful thinking, believing Nine and my dad used to be friends. Who knows? It could be something else entirely.
I don’t really care.
My attention goes straight to the pebble. I point.
“What is that? I finally have a chance to ask. I’ve got to know. What does that small rock have to do with anything?”
Ash shoots a nasty look at Nine. “You haven’t told her?”
“She knows of my debt to her mother. I never had the opportunity to explain the meaning behind it.”
Once upon a time I thought it was like his lucky charm or something. Then, when Callie brought it up, I convinced her to tell me more about it. It looked like a pebble, but it was more.
It was a symbol of the debt that Nine owed Ash.
So why is Nine holding it out to him now?
He made a point to tell me once that he didn’t consider the debt closed. In a fit of anger, I told him that it was—that I didn’t want to be treated like a responsibility he couldn’t avoid—and that he could leave me the hell alone. He refused, then pocketed the pebble.
Is he trying to give it back?
My heart stops beating.
That’s what he’s doing, isn’t it?
“If you’re going to stay in our home, I expect you to be truthful with my daughter.”
“I’ve never lied to Riley,” argues Nine.
Yeah. Because he’s fae. And the fae might not be able to tell a lie, but I know from experience that that doesn’t mean they’re always telling the truth.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
Ash coldly eyes Nine. “Tell her, Ninetroir. Or I will.”
“Fine.”
“Now.”
Nine glares over at my dad. “I’m trying to decide where to begin.”
“Try the beginning. The prophecy.”
I groan. I’m so over the prophecy.
Nine’s frown tells me he agrees. “Alright. There was a prophecy. About a mortal… who wasn’t.”
Sounds familiar. “Let me guess. Half-human. Half-fae.”
He nods. “But it’s not the Shadow Prophecy.”
What?
“Nine, what are you saying?”
“When I was born, there was a prophecy. About a mortal who wasn’t, and a fae who would be indebted to another before he could earn his fated mate.” Nine reaches into the well of his palm, plucking the pebble out with two of his long, slender, pale fingers. He holds it up. “I’ve long owed Aislinn a debt. This pebble carries the weight of that debt.”
“Not just a regular debt,” cuts in Ash. “A life debt.”
“A life debt?” I echo.
“Yes. Because he saved my life.”
He did? No one’s mentioned anything like that to me before.
“I didn’t want to believe in the prophecy. As soon as I came of age, I had other things to do. I needed to begin my search. Melisandre was already on the throne and I wanted to do anything I could to change that. I was arrogant. Cocky. Sure of everything. Even more than now, if you can imagine. I thought I could beat fate. The fate of Faerie was more important than my happiness.
“My search took me right into the human world. This was years and years ago. It was easier to hide as a fae. A quick touch and I had the strength to make the shadows do my bidding. I’m a Dark Fae. It was my birthright. I could go anywhere, here or in Faerie. I was untouchable—or I thought I was. But no Unseelie can fight the sun without a little help.”
Like being brought to the human world by a shadow-wielding halfling who kept him as a statue, acclimating him to the sun until he was more like me than the all-powerful Nine he’s always been.
I gulp.
Nine keeps talking. Now that he’s started, he finds it easier to continue.
“Aislinn was one of Melisandre’s guards. She posted him along a Seelie portal, watching over the Iron. The human world. If it wasn’t for a chance encounter when the shadows disappeared, the sun would have ended me. Only Aislinn was there as he pulled me back into Faerie. When I finally recovered, I owed him a debt.”
“Because you can’t beat fate,” snaps Ash. “Foolish Dark Fae. You never should have tried.”
I notice that there’s less heat in Ash’s tone now than before.
“It led me to Riley, so how can I regret it?” He folds his fist, tucking the pebble away into his pocket. “The prophecy was going to happen whether I want
ed it to or not. I stopped searching the Iron because I finally realized that my fate was tied with Aislinn, one way or another.”
“I couldn’t get rid of him,” muttered Ash.
Nine ignores him. “I went to the Shadow Academy, where the Unseelie guards are trained. Melisandre handpicked me to join her soldiers, but that was because Ash manipulated her to choose me. I needed to watch over him—and then he disappeared into the Iron, too.”
Right. Because he met my mom and chose to stay with her.
Because it was possible. Nine just doesn’t want to stay with me.
I don't want to hear about his past when I’m not too sure either one of us is going to have a future—especially not one together.
He wants to beat fate.
I’m supposed to be his fate.
“Half-human. Half-fae,” I mutter again.
Suddenly, it clicks.
Nine’s fate is tied to a mortal who wasn’t, right? A halfling. And Gillespie told me that I’m the first female halfling he’s met in his three hundred years…
I glare up at him. “Nine. I’ve got a question for you. How long did you know that I was going to be yours?”
The room quiets. I don’t think anyone expected me to just put it out there like that.
They should’ve known better by now.
“I was sure the moment I found you in the asylum. You were on the cusp of turning twenty-one and… it was so obvious to me. Once you were twenty-one for sure, once the fae side of you came out, there was no denying it. The life debt to your sire, the Seelie blood in your veins… the way I was drawn to you. In trying to shield you from the Shadow Prophecy, I realized that mine had finally come to pass.”
Ignoring the part about the Shadow Prophecy, I have to admit that that… actually explains a lot. I remember being a little weirded out—and, okay, a little flattered—at the way he seemed to gobble me up with his gaze that first night in my room in Black Pine. He couldn’t stop watching me.
And then, after our trip to Faerie, right after my fae ears appeared… everything was different. Everything changed.
His touch was so much more powerful than it had been before. And I started to accept that the feelings toward Nine I always had were way more complicated than I thought.
Touch (Touched by the Fae Book 3) Page 11
