Chapter 8 #2
“Love strengthens the weave of the Highland Veil and enables it to keep the planes of time and worlds separated as they should be. If it falls, the darkest chaos would rule, destroying everything pure and good. Life as we know it would cease to exist.” He took her hands.
“As I told ye before, we loved each other in our past lives, and with any luck, we will find each other and love again in the future. But until we love and meld the bond in this lifetime, the Highland Veil will not benefit from anything we do. In fact, it risks growing weaker.”
She frowned up at him. “You’re telling me that if I don’t choose to stay here with you, that all creation could collapse?”
“It could.”
She pulled her hands out of his and turned away. “Don’t do that to me.”
“Don’t do what, lass?”
“Put that kind of pressure on me.” She glanced back at him. “You’re telling the truth. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Truth and honesty, lass. The deal breakers. Remember?”
“That’s not fair.” Her voice had gone so soft, he strained to hear her.
“Whoever told ye life was fair lied to ye.”
Her smile turned sad. “Another hard truth.”
“Oftentimes, the truth is hard.” He turned her to face him and took her hands again, gently pulling her closer. “But together, we can bear it more easily. I swear to shoulder as much of the burden as I possibly can.”
She searched his gaze, her eyes filled with so many emotions. His heart soared at the longing he recognized, but plummeted at the shadows of indecision and hesitancy.
“I have a full life back home in Kentucky,” she said, her tone pleading for him to understand. “In 2025. In my world.”
He barely shook his head. “Nay, love. Ye had a life back there, but it was not full because it did not contain the indescribable connection of a fated mate that the Fae prophecy promised would be the most powerful bond in this age and the next.”
“You truly believe that?” She wasn’t being coy or bitter. He sensed only her honesty, her sincere desire to know.
He kissed the velvety softness of her hands and pressed them to his heart. “I do, lass. Can ye not feel it?”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it.
“Honesty, lass. Truth and honesty.” He kept her hands pressed to his chest, willing her to feel that his heart beat only for her.
“I feel…something. A lot of things.” Her look became pained. “I feel as though I’ve known you all my life, and yet I hardly know anything about you.”
“Our souls recognize one another. Our minds dinna ken each other in this life. At least, not yet. But our souls were once one and can be one again.” He tapped her hands against his chest again. “That is why ye feel as though ye know me.”
“You are the missing part,” she said with a frustrated shrug.
“Like the last wingnut that holds the table together.” Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she narrowed her eyes and stared at her hands against his chest. “But we are more than the sum of all our parts, all our lifetimes. There is more at stake here than what you’ve already told me.
If I abandon all I have ever known, people’s lives will be affected.
My friends will be affected. My horses.” She lifted her gaze to his.
“And after the princess’s reaction to me today, I can only imagine how your parents will react, how your people will behave, when they see me.
From what I have witnessed so far, no matter how young or old, no matter how thin or fat, the Fae are a beautiful people—a blemish-free people.
Princess Faeniana said I would never be accepted, never fit in.
What say you to that?” She arched a brow.
“And I want the truth, no matter how hard it might be to hear.”
“I will not lie and tell ye it will be easy.” He bowed his head, squeezed her hands, and rained kisses across her knuckles, wishing he could tell her differently. “But my people will accept the fulfillment of the prophecy.”
“I see.” She shifted as she took in a deep breath, then released it as a heavy sigh. “And is that the only reason you are accepting me? Because you are afraid to go against the prophecy?”
“As I told ye, when I look upon yer scars, I ache for yer suffering, for all the pain ye have experienced, physically and emotionally. I hate myself for not being there to take it away, to prevent it from ever happening.” He slowly shook his head.
“But with each passing moment, the longer I am in yer presence, it becomes more.”
“More?”
“The ache in my heart is for ye to accept me, the realization of how lonely my life has been up until now, and the fear that ye will not stay, not forgive me for struggling to shed my shallowness. I yearn to hold ye, taste ye, completely consume ye, and make us one. A burning need to never let ye go fills me.” He reached out and touched her face, daring to trail his fingertips across the scar running down her cheek.
“This is nothing compared to yer inner exquisiteness. I bask in yer warmth and kindness. Yer laughter is the purest joy. Ye are incomparable, my love, and I canna bear the thought of ye leaving.” He brushed the backs of his fingers along the curve of her jawline.
“Do ye feel any of what I just described? Any of it at all?”
She shuddered with another heavy sigh and lowered her gaze. “I feel all that and my own version of more. Confusion. Frustration. Disbelief. Worry. Wishing my mammaw was still here so I could talk to her about all this unbelievable stuff that is so hard to wrap my mind around.”
Her answer both thrilled and stabbed him in the center of his heart. “Then what are we to do?”
“I don’t know,” she softly said, but gave him hope by squeezing his hands.
“I don’t know what to do.” She looked up at him and made a face, seeming almost to cringe.
“I can’t commit to anything right away. Like you asked me for time, I need time too.
There is a lot on the line here—for both of us.
Can you be as patient with me as you asked me to be with you? ”
Hope took root in his soul and sprouted, strong and healthy.
“Aye, lass. I can.” He would do whatever it took to not only keep her here, but convince her to choose him.
The disfigurement on her face no longer mattered.
He saw it, but didn’t see it. Whenever he looked at her, he saw the other half of his soul, the person he couldn’t live without.