Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
ROWAN
“Are you mad?” Cernunnos seethed. “She does not know what you two almost did today!”
Evie’s father was furious, far angrier than I’d ever seen him, and I could recall at least two other instances where I thought he might murder Caelan. I had to tread carefully.
“Are we not going to speak about the fact that you were spying on us?”
Cernunnos blinked. “What.”
My eyebrows went up. “How could you have possibly known what was going on if you weren’t watching us?”
Cernunnos turned away and gagged. “Aaagh! Gods above, man! No!” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I am a lot of things, but she is my daughter!”
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. “Then an explanation would be nice.”
He glared at me, nostrils flaring, before he let out a long sigh. “Danu rarely rises. When she does, our kind pays attention.”
“Danu is Mother Earth?”
“Never say that out loud.” Cernunnos rolled his eyes.
“If she had her way, she’d destroy all the trinkets that have her painted blue and green with the earth in her stomach.
She is far too vain for those.” But he saw through my tactic of changing the subject and waggled his finger in front of my face.
“I arrived a few minutes after you and Evie awoke and did not want to…interrupt.”
My god. I was a grizzly for crying out loud, but even I was horrified at what he must have heard.
Cernunnos held a hand up. “I left for a little while because I assumed you were intelligent enough to stop what was happening in its tracks.”
“I was,” I snapped.
“Barely. And you hurt her in the process.” He poked a gnarled finger into my chest. “When will you Lords stop hurting my daughter? I am patient because she asks me to be, but you are both walking a very fine line between life and dust.”
I spread my hands out. “I have no intention of hurting her and today was…regrettable.”
One of his eyebrows went up, rage making his eyes flare green and gold.
“Regrettable,” I hurried to say, “in that I had not had the chance to tell her what was happening between us to give her the time to accept or reject the gift.”
“If you had, what do you think her answer would be?”
I shook my head. “I think she would tell me no.”
Sympathy flashed in the old god’s eyes, there and gone so fast I thought I might have imagined it. “I agree,” he said quietly.
We fell silent before I admitted, “I’m floundering. She’s everything I ever wanted, and I feel like I’m fucking this up. Today was…” My voice trailed off and I raised my face to the sky. “Beyond anything I’ve ever experienced. She heals my land and my people. She heals me.”
Cernunnos stayed silent, only studying me with his wise and terrible visage. He jerked his head and walked toward the back of my property. “You’ve asked her to stay,” he said after a moment.
“I did.”
“Caelan grows bitter and angrier than before. You will not escape him for much longer. If you are to convince her, it has to be soon. Do not let him wrap her in the false cocoon of safety he offers.”
“He knows she can protect herself.”
The god tilted his head. “He merely buys time. If he had his way, Evie would stay at the Keep and become his Lady, there to lead his people, and stay silent in all other matters.”
Caelan was my friend, but I saw his flaws when others might not. The god was not wrong, though I hoped Caelan would realize he could never trap Evie in such a way that she would not fight her way to escape. He was not an evil man, only flawed, and used to getting his way.
All the Lords, me included, were used to being obeyed.
Our commands were law, but Evie had never been our subject, not even when she was supposed to be.
Even before she was the fae queen, she was resistant to our authority and chose to keep her head down rather than get tangled up in a world that might expose her.
Look what happened when she did. She’d almost died multiple times.
A relentless wolf pursued her, won her, then betrayed her causing her to flee from her lands, and then she made out with a grizzly bear with a wild crush on her only to get soundly rejected, and now that grizzly was outside fighting with her father.
Gods. This sounded like a terrible sitcom.
“You do not approve of Caelan as a son-in-law?”
Cernunnos let out a derisive snort. “Evie should marry a king, but those are in short supply.” He stopped at the edge of a small pond and sat down in a cross-legged position. I did the same, keeping a safe distance between us.
He smirked. “I can find you anywhere, you know.”
“Yes,” I said dryly. “You’ve more than proven so today.”
Cernunnos’ smile held an edge. “My daughter will not marry a king, so the person she chooses must emulate the qualities of one.”
There was so much I wanted to say, but Cernunnos was still eons more powerful than me. “You know what we are to each other.”
“No. I know what you are to her. Evie is not familiar enough with our ways or the ways of the shifter to realize what almost happened today.”
“You would take her from me?”
The god picked up a rock and skimmed the stone over the surface of the glittering water.
“Unlike humans or Lords, I do not take anything from Evie. Too many people have already taken too many things from her. She will do as she pleases. I may guide, even manipulate her if I deem it necessary, but if my daughter chooses to leave you, it will be of her own volition.”
A cold comfort, that. Reality was already forcing its way back into our lives. Corruption grew on my lands, and we lived on borrowed time until Caelan arrived. I bowed my head.
“I want her to stay.”
“I’m well aware of how you feel about her, Rowan.”
“Do you have any advice for me?”
I thought he might mock me, but instead, Cernunnos uncrossed his legs and spread them out, then leaned back on his palms. He tipped his face up, watching with glowing eyes as brilliant oranges and purples streaked the sky, and laughed.
“I loved Cliona once, back when I was a stupid boy. If someone like me could ever be considered a boy. Even worse, she loved me back. We were fools for each other.”
He never spoke about Evie’s mother. She’d be green with jealousy if she overheard our conversation. “What happened?”
“I was the king of our people—a target for every sniveling wretch who sought power. Loving someone makes them a target as well, and Cliona, she is a different kind of fae. Her banshees are not well understood, and many fae fear them.” He paused. “As they should.”
His eyes met mine. “Loving someone means sacrifice every single day. Loving Cliona was easy, but I was selfish. She was the one who made me realize our relationship could harm the most important thing in our lives and our world.”
“Evie.”
He nodded. “Evie. Because we loved each other so much, but loved our daughter more, we agreed to become enemies. Cliona spent too many years shunning her daughter for her own safety. It changed her.” Sadness flickered in his ancient gaze before he looked away. “And it changed us.”
“Do you still love her?”
A ghost of a smile. “I will love her until the wind fades away and the oceans turn to salt pillars. But Cliona no longer looks at me the same. She believes I was the king and I should have fought harder for them, fought to stay with them, and protected Evie more than I did.”
“What do you think?”
“Cliona was right, and I will spend the rest of my wretched, immortal life trying to make it up to her.”
His words sank deep into my heart. “I will fight for her.”
A single sharp nod. “I know, but you still keep secrets from Evie. My daughter has had too many secrets in her life. You will lose her if you continue to hide the truths hidden in your heart. If she is what you think she is, you must trust her, no matter where her heart leads her.”
“Even if it leads her away from me?”
In an instant he was by my side, so fast I would have had no hope if he planned to attack me. Instead of violence, Cernunnos clapped me on the shoulder and rose. “Again, young Lord, if she is who you believe she is, the road, no matter how treacherous and long, will always lead back to you.”
The god rose and held his hand out, a peace offering. For now. I took it and rose, Cernunnos’ immense strength turning my movement into more of a soft leap. “Come. We must speak of darker things than love.”