Fae's Fate: Fated Mates of the Fae Royals (Summer Court Book 7)

4. Ciara

Iwas so glad Malachi had offered to come with me to Earth. When we’d walked through the village all those humans stared at us, they’d made chills run down my spine. I’d read the stories of the olden days when we used to live in harmony with them, but I’d also read the stories of the Trappers and how they’d attempted to kill us all. How they’d believed burning us alive would release our powers to them. I shuddered at the image, knowing they had burned my mother, Aislinn, and Briana. How they’d kill both sets of my grandparents before I was born.

I wasn’t sure what to think about humans. There was a part of me who wanted the peace we once had, and there was a part of me who wanted to hide in the safety of the Summer Court. Father had only kept us safe by locking us inside. The problems we were facing were catastrophic, but we’d had centuries of happiness.

Alister led the way through the garden. I shoved aside the tall plants to follow him, eager to see the library. The books held so many secrets. My fingers itched to open them. Pry the words from the pages and absorb them into my mind.

No one but Malachi understood my excitement for reading books.

I stepped into a rose bush having not seen it amongst the other overgrown plants. Thorns stuck into the coat and ripped the material, scratching my leg.

“Ow,” I mumbled.

“Hold still,” Malachi said.

He bent and tenderly tugged the offending limb from my clothes sending a skittering of goose bumps up my leg and held the rose bush limb back for me to find a safe way out of my ridiculous predicament. How did I get myself into such a mess? Alister and everyone else seemed to find their way through the garden without mishap. Once I was clear, Malachi let go of the branch and it snapped back into place, hiding amongst the overgrown plants yet again. The Fellowship had booby-trapped the area with vegetation to keep people away. Briana would enjoy this place and using her powers over plants, she’d make the place shine like the gardens back home.

A home we might not even be able to get back to if we didn’t fix the spring.

Alister lit a lantern I hadn’t noticed him carrying and said, “Down we go.”

Then he disappeared. I rushed forward, scared he’d fallen but beyond the thick bush was a set of stairs leading underground.

“The library is underground,” Aislinn said.

“Great.”

Malachi and I had once found a cave in the Summer Court, and I’d been so scared about being sealed inside and having my dark powers overcome me. That they would consume me and all I’d know was darkness that we’d never mentioned it to anyone. Only my best friend comprehended my fears.

Aislinn, Fallon, and her guards followed Alister down the stairs. They made it look easy. Below appeared well-lit, but the entire idea of being underground made my skin crawl in a bad way.

“Are we going in?” Ivo asked.

“Go ahead,” Malachi said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

“But our job is to protect the princess.”

“The garden has a wall around it. I doubt anyone will come and hurt her,” Malachi said. “Besides, we’ll only be a minute.”

A minute in Fae time or human time? There was a big difference.

Ivo scowled. “I don’t like it, but we’ll wait at the bottom of the stairs.”

Malachi nodded, waited for them to disappear then hugged me.

“Everything is all right, Ciara, you can do this.”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I can. It’s underground. You remember what happened at the cave.”

“We were children then. You’re a grown Fae now, besides think of all the books waiting for you down there.”

I cocked my head to the side. “There is that. But what if the walls collapse? And buried us alive?”

“The walls won’t collapse.”

“How do you know?”

“I do.” He eased me away from the warmth of his chest.

I missed the contact at once. The way his strong arms held me. How he’d eased my fear by his comforting hug, and the way my skin tingled from his hands holding me.

“But how?”

His lips tilted to the side on the right with the lopsided smile he always reserved for me when my questions amused him.

“We both read books about caves and underground structures after your panic attack.”

“Logic doesn’t come in here.” I placed my hands on my hips the strange sensation tingling my skin forgotten now he wasn’t touching me.

“If the walls collapsed, I’d find you. I’d find you anywhere.”

I lowered my hands and clasped his needing contact with him again. “Stay by my side.”

“Always.”

“If I have a panic attack, can you carry me out?”

He chuckled. “You won’t have a panic attack, but yes, I’ll carry you out if you need me to.”

I stretched up on my tiptoes and kissed his cheek as I had many times over the past but this time my lips tingled at the brush against his skin. I drew back and said, “You’re the best friend ever.”

His lopsided smile fell from his face, and I wanted it back. What did I say to make it go away?

“Malachi?”

“Hmm?”

Was he experiencing these strange sensations too? Or was it because we were on Earth, and everything felt different?

“Don’t worry about it.”

He frowned. “What do you want to ask?”

I couldn’t possibly ask him if he was attracted to me. It would be a strange thing to ask my best friend.

“Nothing.” I placed one foot in front of the other, shoved the strange stirrings in my body aside, and stepped down the first stair.

At least there were rows of bright white torches lighting our way down the staircase.

“I understand you better, so what was it?” he asked as he stepped down the stairs beside me.

We reached the bottom of the stairs, and I lifted my chin. The sight before me was one of an immense library. Bigger than the library back home. Rows upon rows of bookshelves stretched for hundreds of feet. So many books lined the shelves I’d be here for centuries and never read them all. I’d believed our library in the Summer Court held every book but perhaps I was mistaken. In the center of the underground library was a long wooden table running the length of the room. People sat at the table, every one of them with an open book before them.

“Wow.” I breathed out the word on an exhale.

Malachi followed my line of sight and said, “I agree.”