Chapter 5 #2
Hot tears streamed down Lexi’s cheeks. She couldn’t help it.
Her heart overflowed with the beauty of the unicorn family.
With a rumbling grumble, Pegasus approached her with his head bowed, then ever so gently, he touched the tip of his horn to her forehead.
The purest joy and gratitude she had ever known surged through her and made her tears flow harder.
The mighty unicorn stepped back, bowed his head again, then gathered his family and disappeared with them as though they had been a lovely illusion in the clearing.
Even though she was overjoyed that the family was reunited and healthy, unrealistic disappointment at their leaving crashed through her. “Oh, no. They’re gone,” she whispered. “I’m going to miss them.”
“Ye will see them again,” Jeros said just as softly.
Oh, how she prayed he was right. “I hope so. They are so beautiful.”
“Pegasus gave his oath to protect ye since ye saved his family.” Jeros gently touched her forehead in the same spot the unicorn had touched with his horn. “Ye bear his star now. An honor bestowed upon verra few.”
“His star?” She pulled out her phone, tapped on the camera, and hit the arrows as if about to take a selfie.
Jeros had not exaggerated. A faint, elongated star, like the blaze on a horse’s forehead, gleamed in the center of her brow as if she had drawn it with the favorite iridescent markers of her childhood.
While the last thing she needed was something that would draw attention to her face, a warm surge of gratitude and pride filled her.
“I am honored and glad I was able to help. They are absolutely magnificent. It would be such a sorrow to lose them.”
“Aye, lass, they are magnificent, but not as magnificent as yerself. Even though ye thought unicorns a myth, ye nay hesitated to do whatever it took to help them.”
She lowered the phone that would soon become a useless paperweight as soon as its battery died. “I couldn’t let them die. The mare was so afraid and wanted to see her babies so badly.”
He stared at her for a long moment, but this time, he wasn’t ogling her scars. “Ye feel what they feel. The animals?”
She shrugged. “I guess so. I never really thought about it because that’s the way I’ve always been.
I understand animals a lot better than humans.
” An unexplainable sense of loss and the very real chill from the damp, mossy ground seeped up into her bones and made her shiver.
She hurried to don her shirt and roll down her sleeves while looking around for the jacket she had tossed aside.
She needed to get home. Now. This man…or elf…
no…not an elf but a fairy made her feel—what?
Uneasy? Lonely? Like maybe he was the piece of the puzzle she’d been missing all this time?
She shook her head and yanked on her jacket.
“It’s getting later. How far and in which direction is the road now?
” She’d lost track in her dash to find the animal in distress, and the trees’ canopy of leaves was too thick to see the moon or stars.
When he didn’t answer, she turned to find him standing there, still staring at her. “Did you hear me?”
He blinked as if waking from a daydream he was loath to leave behind.
“Aye, lass,” he said, sounding almost sad.
“I heard ye.” He lifted his face to the sky and closed his eyes, slowly turning in a circle, then he pointed to the right.
“The road is that way, but much farther than before. I canna imagine ye wandering that far off course to end up at Sevenrest.”
“My car was on the road when it stalled. I have to find it so I can get back.”
“Would it be so bad for ye to stay?” he asked quietly. “Are ye so ready to leave behind a world of friendly tigers, unicorns, and Fae princes?”
“You look more like an alpha Highlander than a fairy prince. One of those hunky types on the covers of romance novels.” Why in the world had she said that?
“No offence. Hunky alpha Highlanders aren’t a bad thing, and I’m not exactly an expert on fairy princes.
That simply came to mind and flew out of my mouth before I could filter it.
I sometimes have a problem with that.” But she had never been that unfiltered before.
What was it about Jeros that made her say anything that came to mind?
As if any thought that might flit through her mind needed to be shared with him because she knew he would take it to heart and understand her?
He grimaced. “I am not a fairy, one of those winged bugs with the dust that makes children fly. I came across that book in the Dreaming. I am a Fae prince. A mighty Seelie of the Light.”
“Sorry.” She resettled her stance and looked away, unable to keep looking him in the eye because…
well, just because. She saw so much in that electric blue of his eyes.
It was as if they drew her in and threatened to never let her go.
Let her go. Go. She had to go. “Maggie can’t take care of my patients forever, and my people at Vinemagic Horse Farms need me. ”
“What about what ye need for yerself? Do ye not feel it, lass? The pull? The insistent drawing together? As steady and strong as the moon pulls the tide?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” That was a lie. She knew exactly what he was talking about, and it frightened her witless.
He tipped his head to one side and smiled, the sort of smile a parent gave their child when they’d caught them with their hand in the cookie jar. “Lexi.”
“What?”
“There is something ye should know about the Seelie.”
“And what is that?”
“We can smell untruths.”
Interesting. She folded her arms and resettled her stance again. “And what exactly does an untruth smell like?”
He tipped his nose higher and sniffed. “I would describe it as the scent of stagnated pond muck.”
“Eww.”
“Exactly. Now, would ye care to change yer answer?”
“I have responsibilities.” She patted her chest. “And the way I was raised, everything I was taught, cries out for me to do right by my friends, my employees, and my board of directors. If I simply abandon them and dive into this strange, wonderful world I have somehow wandered into, my guilt about shirking those responsibilities will turn into a festering wound that ruins everything else in my life.”
“And what of the need to bond with yer fated mate?”
She clenched her teeth so hard that it made her cheeks ache.
How could she explain that she was so tired of failed relationships and was reluctant to dive into another, no matter how strong the urge might be?
She had seen the way he subtly flinched whenever he looked at her scars, the way his gaze always returned to them, and how he struggled not to react.
He was a drop-dead handsome prince who needed a beautiful trophy princess to hang on his arm.
While there was nothing wrong with her, she was neither a trophy nor a beautiful princess and never would be.
She might be a trophy in some circles, but she was a slightly battered one that would never be as pretty and uniform as the others on the shelf.
“What if my fated mate has reservations about bonding with me? Why would I want to risk getting hurt? Why would I jump into a relationship that could very well end in resentment when I can plainly see that I am not what my fated mate expected?” Maybe he would give her an honest answer if she kept it a little vague and less accusatory.
“Just because I did not expect ye, does not mean I intend to deny our bond.”
She huffed a soft laugh as she flipped up her collar and released her hair from the ponytail she’d pulled it into to get it out of the way during the unicorn delivery. “The idea of fated mates is romantic, but hardly realistic.”
“So ye feel nothing for me?”
Tired of being the one attacked, she turned on him. “What do you feel for me? And be honest. Don’t be spewing any pond muck, because I can see how you feel about my scars. It’s in your eyes every time you look at me.”
His eyes, as cold and icy as any wolf’s, narrowed, but her victory was short-lived.
She braced herself for whatever he was about to say.
He took a step toward her, opening and closing his fists as if searching the air for the words he needed.
“I will not lie and tell ye yer scars dinna matter. They give me pause each time I look upon yer face.”
She swallowed hard, but held her head high, determined not to let him see how much his honesty hurt. “Then why would you think to make me your fated mate? If I go back to where I belong, you can pick someone else. Not a fated mate, but someone you can look at without flinching.”
“I did not choose to make ye my fated mate,” he said, his head tipping thoughtfully.
“Ye simply are. Ye are the other half of my soul. We have joined and been torn asunder over any number of incarnations. Those where we failed to find each other were a misery. Those where we discovered one another and claimed our bond were a joy. That is why I canna choose another.” The muscles in his square jaw rippled.
The man was obviously grinding his teeth.
“I always choose joy, no matter how difficult it might seem at first. Joy is a precious thing worth striving for. Do ye not believe so?”
“I will not be with someone who pities me or pities themself because they believe themselves stuck with me. I deserve better. I deserve genuine love.”
“Love will come.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because of the bond. With some, it is not love at first. So say the Defenders, the Divine Weavers, and the goddesses themselves. But I believe it can come, that it will come. Eventually.”