Normal #3
“And how are the boys?” I asked.
“Sirk is settled. I like him. He’s a good male. Very funny.”
“He is that.”
“And it says a great deal about him that not long after a breakup, he’d come to Gayle’s aid.”
That did say a great deal about him.
“But his mission is accomplished. He’s leaving first thing tomorrow.”
“That’s probably good,” I mumbled.
“I know she’s taken the spell, but I fear that was a mistake for an unexpected reason.”
This change of mind was interesting.
“I thought you were all for it.”
“I was, until I saw Mac react to her around another male.”
“Oh,” I whispered.
“I need to carve out time to see if I can get him to share. Because whatever is holding him back, it is absolutely not that he doesn’t want her.”
My lips parted in shock.
“You didn’t see it?” he asked.
“It seems he’s struggling with something,” I allowed.
“He’s holding back, for reasons unknown, but I don’t think he wants to hold back. I think he has to.”
“He told her he doesn’t want a half-human, half-fae Fallian as his bride and eventual queen.”
“He lied.”
Tanyn seemed very sure about that.
So I asked, “How do you know?”
“Because you don’t lose your shit that a female you don’t want is with another male.”
“But the fated mate thing…”
“Her merest whim, she voices it, he backs down.”
Hmm.
I’d noticed that.
“Mac doesn’t back down from shit,” Tanyn continued.
“Do you have any clue what his damage is?”
He shook his head but said, “I know him, and have for some time. Longer than Aleksei or Bain. He did a year at the Eyrie in an exchange when I was there. He was younger than me, but seeing as he was who he was, and getting shit for it, and I’m who I am, even though I’d been officially stripped of my titles, I looked after him.
You know Niall and Laoise had a son before they had Cormac. ”
I grimaced at the reminder of that particular loss. “Prince Sollo.”
He nodded, his head moving on the pillow.
It was adorable.
“For obvious reasons, their public facing image is a close-knit family. However, I noticed at the Eyrie, Mac was very closed off. Not easy to get to know. Private in a way I understood, because he is who he is. You learn early not to trust because many beings will want to know you for reasons you don’t want to be known.
Others will use you. I’m sure you understand. ”
“I haven’t, until now, but I can empathize.”
“Well, it was more. For ten years, he was the spare. Then, after a tragedy, he was the future king. But I don’t think Niall ever let him forget he was born the spare.”
I couldn’t believe that. King Niall seemed so cool.
But I did believe it, because Tanyn told it to me.
“Oh my gods, what a dick,” I whispered. “It isn’t Cormac’s fault Sollo died like he did.”
“It wasn’t. And they lost a son. I know loss.
I still can’t imagine. But Cormac also lost a brother, and I know for certain, because he told me, he and Sollo were tight.
It was near on hero worship in Cormac’s eyes.
I can’t say what it is, because he hasn’t shared the totality of it when it comes to his parents.
I do know, whatever the dysfunction is, he’s almost as protective of Princess Rowan as he is triggered to be protective of Gayle. ”
That was saying something.
And this was why I uttered, “Whoa.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know why?”
“No clue. But she visited him at the Eyrie, and I witnessed myself how he glared down anyone who even glanced at her. Including upperclassmen, and at the Eyrie, upperclassmen are considered a higher rank, so that is not the done thing.”
“Do you think something happened to her?”
He shoved his other arm under me so he could roll to his back and hold me pressed to his side.
“I think beings process loss in a variety of ways. Some of them are natural and healthy. The hole is never filled, but they get on with their lives. Some of them are angry and bitter, and they cast about to find someone to blame, or someone to punish, like inflicting pain alleviates their own. I don’t get that.
But I worry that’s what Mac and Row experienced.
Sollo was the favored son. Neither of them are Sollo, and it was made clear they weren’t. ”
My gaze wandered to the headboard as I murmured, “I think Gayle needs to know this.”
He got my attention back with a hefty arm squeeze. “I think you need to let them handle this as they handle it.”
“Tanyn—”
“It doesn’t matter in the short term. She’s spelled herself.”
“That’s true, but we’re not mated, and I’m falling for you.”
He smiled and rolled again so I was on my back and he was pressed down my side.
When his hands started roaming, particularly to my nightgown in order to pull it up, I remarked, “I sense we’re done talking about Cormac and Gayle.”
I liked the gruff timbre of his voice when he said, “We very much are.”
I wanted to tell him that I was going to show Gayle the picture of Selediel tomorrow afternoon.
And I hadn’t yet told him what Mira said to me.
But since he was now kissing me, I decided they both could wait.
And they did.