23. Thea
Chapter twenty-three
Thea
Earth
C ara wrapped her slender, yet firm, arm around my waist and helped me walk over the lush green field. The soft grass was spongy under my feet. It frightened me to think I didn’t know if I’d been here before. I didn’t know if I’d ever walked across the grass like this in my life. Or had a gracious arm wrapped around my waist. A modest cottage with white walls and a thatched dark roof sat on the top of a hill. In the distance, a small seaside village with an array of bright white, blue, and red buildings sat on the curves of a cove.
“Ireland is on Earth,” Cara said.
I wrinkled my nose. The name didn’t sound familiar at all. Nothing did. My brain was in blank darkness. I knew I was a woman, but that was it. Every time I strained to think thoughts of who or what I was, my head flared with a dark pain. Cara prattled, her voice a white noise in my ears, on how she was a fae, her entire town was a fae village. She thought I was a fae, too. I didn’t correct her since I didn’t know who or what I was.
Or where I belonged.
My heart thudded frantically inside my chest as though I’d headed in the wrong direction. My ribs ached with the pulsing. A sense I was supposed to be somewhere, doing something with someone important filled my aching brain. I placed a palm on my forehead. Thinking made my head hurt with the pain of a thousand pressure points. Cara blessedly stopped talking and patted my arm.
She opened the door of her house, beaming at her humble abode like it was a palace fit for a queen. Pain shot through my head once again. I gasped as I staggered in after her. She eased me onto a chair. I placed my elbows on the timber table and rested my chin in my palms watching Cara as she moved about efficiently heating water in a black pot over the glowing timber in the hearth. She tested the water with her finger, then poured it into a bowl and dipped a cloth into the steaming liquid. She lifted the cloth to my face. I dropped my hands so she could wipe the bruises and scratches with her tender care. As the liquid seeped into a scratch close to my eye, I winced. She tutted and tested the split in my skin, making it sting even more with the fresh air hitting the raw surface. Letting it close, she fetched a jar, opened the lid, and wiped the white pine-scented salve on the wound.
“There,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll heal, anyway, since you’re a supernatural creature.”
“How are you sure?” I tugged the sides of my robe around my chin, aware I was naked underneath.
She eyed my face. “You’re too pretty to be human. Not that humans can’t be pretty, but there’s an extra glow to us.”
I let my gaze roam her face. She stared back at me with inquiring blue eyes. Her features were delicate and so beautiful. Beneath her skin hummed with the something extra she said. Power? I lifted my hand, surprised to find it glowing. I shook my hand like I experienced something horrible on it and wanted to get rid of it. The glow grew.
Cara clasped my hand between hers. The glow on my hand disappeared between her glowing white palms.
“That’s fae power in your hands. Only fae have glowing hands.”
“Oh.” I was fae. I had to be. What else might I be?
“Let’s get the rest of you tended to before my mate comes in from the fields.” She let go of my now once again normal hands. “I’ll fetch you a dress to wear, too.”
She hurried over to her closet and removed a pale blue dress. I slid the sleeves of the robe up my arms and found more bruises and scratches. Wherever I’d come from or whatever I’d been through must have been rough.
“It was the vortex.” She placed the dress across the back of the other timber chair. “Fae go through the veil to the Summer Court. It’s like walking through the air, calm and welcoming. What you arrived through was unnatural. Made by a witch, most likely. They make anything if you have enough money to pay them.”
“Witch?”
“Aye.” She took the damp cloth from my hand and moved behind me, easing the robe from my shoulders. Her startled gasp echoed in my ear.
“What is it?”
Her finger touched my back in a tentative brush as though she was frightened of what she’d found. “You have wing slits.”
“Wing what?”
“These.” She ran her finger over one shoulder blade and then the other in a more confident manner. “These are the places your wings come out of.”
“I have wings?”
She chuckled. “Aye. You can snap them in and out of your body as you require. Which means you’re not a fae.”
But if only fae had glowing hands…
“What am I then?” I tilted my head back.
She shrugged. “You could be any of many things. A harpy, angel or demon, siren, djinn, fairy or even a pixie.”
I frowned. “How do I figure it out?”
“If you let your wings out, then we’ll see for sure which one you are.”
I concentrated on my back. How did you make wings appear when you didn’t even realize you owned them? Nothing happened. Not that I expected it to. I huffed in frustration. If my wings appeared, then I’d see what I was. I’d understand one thing about myself. Anything was better than nothing. The wings didn’t emerge from my shoulders as I pictured.
“I don’t know how.” Defeat poured from my pores. I sagged in the chair. How could I make wings appear when I didn’t know how?
“Never mind.” She patted my shoulder in consolation. “I’ll head outside and let you dress in private. Call out if you need me.”
I nodded and waited for the sound of the wooden door to close before standing and letting the robe drop to the floor. A shiver wracked my body as I wiped each bruised and battered limb clean before stepping into her soft blue cotton dress. The fabric clung to my body like a foreign object. It didn’t feel right. Nothing about being here did.
I shuffled over to the door on my bare feet since Cara hadn’t given me shoes, not that Cara had worn shoes herself. Was that a fae thing? I stepped outside into the blinding rays of the sun. I placed a hand over my forehead and watched as Cara stood a short distance away, her arms around a man while she kissed him fervently. Must be her mate by the looks of it. She whispered in his ear and his gaze snapped my way. He hugged her again, then took her hand in his and they walked over to me.
“Hello,” he said. “I’m Seamus. My mate tells me you don’t know who you are.”
“No. She thinks I’m fae, but I have wings, too.”
His red eyebrows hit his hairline.
Cara patted his chest. “I said she can stay with us until her memory returns.”
“Love.” He clasped her hand. “Is that wise? An immortal creature with no memory must have enemies.”
I sucked in a startled breath. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“I know,” she said. “But if it was me this happened to, if it was me wandering around a strange place with no memory, wouldn’t you want someone nice to take care of me?”
He sighed. “I suppose she can stay, but if there’s so much as a hint of danger for you, then she has to leave.”
Cara squealed.
I grimaced. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”
My gaze snapped to the surrounding area, searching for any danger. In the distance, the shimmering blue ocean caught my eye as though drawn to the water. White waves rolled onto the beach at the cove below. I turned back to the green land behind us from where we’d walked. Where she’d found me. Logic said I should head toward the ocean if there was danger coming for me, and not back where I originated. Staying here might be a terrible idea, but fear crippled me that if danger arose, would I even realize it?
“It’ll be fine,” Cara said. “I’ve always wanted someone to take care of.”
Seamus dragged her into his arms and kissed her softly on the cheek. “One day we’ll have a child.”
“When Seamus? I haven’t enjoyed a heat since my first one many years ago. I should have never let you talk me out of mating then.”
His face twisted with regret and anguish. “Leaving you that day was the worst mistake of my life.”
Cara grumbled under her breath.
I felt like an outsider watching their most intimate of inner moments. I ducked my head, letting my long hair fall over my face, so I avoided looking at them.
“It’s both our fault,” she said, having lost whatever ire she held. “Seamus, please, let’s move past it and think about helping this woman for now.”
“All right, love.”
The wind picked up, blowing a cool breeze off the shore, a salty gust that whipped around my body and blasted my hair back from my face. A shiver worked its way through my body from the tips of my ears to my unshod toes. How weren’t Seamus and Cara feeling cold, too? My teeth rattled against each other as the wind grew even more until the breeze tore tears from my eyes.
“Are you cold?” Cara asked.
“Ye.. es,” I clattered.
“You’re without doubt not a fae, then, since we don’t feel the cold.”
“Lu… cky you.” I wrapped my arms around myself, struggling to stave off the chill.
“Come inside and sit by the fire. I’ll cook dinner and maybe something will jog your memory?”
I doubted it, but sitting by the fire was too tempting. The coldness of my body was nothing compared to the icy chill inside my head and heart. What if I was here forever with no memory? What if the enemies Seamus assumed I had approached, and I held no memory of them? No knowledge they were my enemy. What if I trusted the wrong person?