- FOUR #3
"Yeah," Doyle agreed. I looked up at them, confused. "It knows you're hurt, and it thinks we're making you keep going. It wants to protect you from us."
"Oh," I said, reaching down and patting the beast's soft fur, feeling oddly attached to it suddenly. "They don't mean it," I said, and its ears perked up, listening. "We are just trying to find a friend. She's in trouble..."
"Oh, for fuck's sake. It can't understand you," Jasper snorted.
"He understands me just fine," I insisted, though I wasn't sure of that. It stood then, turning sideways against my body and nudging into me several times.
I looked up at Doyle questioningly, and he shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe it wants you to ride it?"
As Doyle spoke, the beast's eyes met mine, willing me to understand. With a shrug at the annoyed-looking Jasper, I slowly lifted one of my legs and put it over its back, hoping I wouldn't hurt it. But as soon as I sat down, gently holding its fur, it turned to the men as if awaiting instructions.
"I'm not giving orders to a fucking dog," Jasper snorted. "I mean I've seen a lot of shit, fae that turn into beasts. But never one that just... was a beast."
Doyle shrugged. "The Winters' compound," he said, and the barguest's head moved up and down as if in a nod and started away. "I'll be damned," Doyle said, moving in to flank my right, Jasper moving into my left.
"Do you think it would mind if I named it?" I asked when the silence stretched for an uncomfortably long time.
"It likes you," Doyle said. "It would probably consider it a compliment."
I nodded. "What is a fae name that means... 'protector'?"
There was a strained silence for a minute before Doyle answered in a weird, quiet voice. "Jasper."
My head snapped up, looking over at Doyle accusingly, but I saw nothing but honesty there.
Then I looked over at Jasper who refused to look back at me.
"Well, that name is... taken." A couple seconds later, Doyle broke through the awkwardness by declaring I call it Onyx.
I looked down at its midnight fur and petted it.
"That's perfect. Thank you, Onyx. My feet already feel better," I lied, but the darn thing fluffed up underneath me.
I didn't care what Jasper said, he totally understood me.
It wasn't a dog or beast. At least, not fully.
There was something inside that thought and comprehended things.
The day wore on, my thighs and ass getting sore from the uncomfortable straddled position. And, despite not exerting myself, the heat was still merciless, making every inch of me sticky and disgusting.
But it was all for Jade. It would be worth it to have her back safe and sound.
"So what, exactly, is the plan once we get to your parents' land?" Doyle asked what we were both wondering.
I looked over at Jasper from under my lashes, seeing things there I hadn't seen before- tiredness and a bone-deep worry that I found incredibly troubling on his face. "We find Jade," he said simply.
It really wasn't an answer, but Doyle accepted it.
As for me, well, I needed more than that.
"Maybe when we reach your parents' land, I should stay behind with Onyx." At Jasper's silence, I pressed on. "We'll only slow you down. And I don't know anything about the... fae or anything so..."
"No," Jasper snapped through clenched teeth.
"Be reasonable," I insisted.
"No," he barked again, and I tried not to take it personally. I didn't have to be an emotion-sensing fae to know he was stressed out. Everything about him vibrated with untapped energy, with worry, with fear. "Not many people have accused me of being reasonable," he added.
"I don't have anything to offer. I don't have any kind of skills..."
Jasper sighed and turned fully toward me.
--
Jasper
"Do you know what 'celestine' is?" I asked.
"Aside from my name?"
I ignored that and went on. "It's another name for the gemstone celestite. It's the angelic gemstone," I added, knowing anyone else would pick up on the weight of meaning there, but then again, Cece didn't have a fucking clue about who she was, let alone what the stone she was named after meant.
"It's also a French baby name," she said with a casual shrug.
"No. It's a fae name. It means the person who has its name has the power to connect with the angelic realm, and ask for guidance or blessings. The namesake also has the ability to calm anxiety and general worry."
"Um, have we met?" she asked, smirking. "I am a ball of anxiety tied together with worry. And I'm not fae."
She wasn't wrong about one of those things. A dozen images of her anxieties and fears had flashed across my mind all day. "It's not for you," I explained. "When you have a power name, it only works externally. Like for me, I can't take my own nightmares away, just other peoples' nightmares."
"Again, you're overlooking the most important part of your argument.
"Which is?"
"That I am human," she said, shifting a little uncomfortably as if a part of her knew it was a lie, but the other part was desperately trying to cling to the comfort of it.
I stopped, patted Onyx's flank to make him quit walking too, then caught Doyle's eyes and gave him a chin jerk.
He nodded and shuffled off. Cece's brows drew together at me then she swiveled her head to look for Doyle.
Because he made her feel safe, I realized.
He was who she looked to for reassurance. Not me.
And for reasons I was choosing not to analyze, that grated.
"He'll be back in a few minutes. Look," I said, trying to take the sharp edge out of my voice. "You're not human. You're at least half-fae. I know it. Doyle knows it. Jade knew it. And, my guess, even your parents knew it. Step-parents, more like," I corrected.
I watched as a myriad of emotions crossed her face, crossed her mind, her heart. There was the refusal to believe, the confusion, the curiosity. I could feel her flipping through all her memories, seeing some things that had bothered her all her life start to make sense.
"It makes sense, doesn't it?" I asked, reaching out and taking her chin between my fingers, forcing her head up to look at me.
"You probably don't look like your parents, like your siblings.
You've always been a bit off, felt like you didn't fit.
You can't tolerate meat or dairy for no good reason.
Except there is a good reason: you're not human. "
Her slight body shrank with her exhale as I saw the battle play across her features. "How?"
I had the almost overwhelming urge to comfort her, to find the softer words, the gentler explanations.
But that wasn't who I was. "It happens more than you'd think.
Some fae swap out their offspring with human ones to protect them.
Some do it because the fae babies are inexplicably ill.
They put them in the human realm and they somehow perk up, get fat and healthy, then the eventually get drawn back to The Green when they're older. "
"But why take the human babies then? Why not just put the fae babies up for adoption?"
"Because they want to know where their babies are going. They want to keep an eye. Your system for orphans in your world is criminal. And, well, even fae mothers are still mothers. They want something to coddle and raise."
"But then what happens to the human babies when they grow up and the real fae kids come back?"
I sighed, shrugging, not particularly liking that part of my ancestry. "They usually end up as servants in the fae households."
"That's... awful."
"It is," I agreed. "Some get out somehow. They stumble through the woods long enough and find a perimeter that is weak and slip through back to the human realm where they are usually left homeless and thought crazy for babbling on about fae people."
"So you're saying that I'm like... that thing from those stories. Shit," she said, brows furrowing. "What are they called?"
"Changelings. You're a changeling."
She sucked in a deep breath, held it, then released it. "And what about my parents? Is there some way for me to know who they are?"
"Maybe," I said, trying to soothe her, then thinking better of it. "Honestly? Probably not."
To that, she nodded. "There are good and bad fae, right? If the tales are right."
"Seelie," I corrected. "They are the Light, the sort of good fae. Then there is the Unseelie, or Dark fae, who are more... malicious," I said carefully, sugar-coating how bone-deep evil they actually were.
"I guess I'd just kind-of like to know if I was good or bad, you know?"
"You're good," I said immediately, without thinking.
"You don't know that," she said with an eye roll.
"I do," I said, and I did. I knew it. I felt good in her. "Besides, your name is Celestine. That isn't the name an Unseelie would name their offspring." She nodded to that but stayed silent. "You alright?"
She nodded a little tightly. "Yeah. There's just a lot to think about there I guess. I just need to stretch my legs," she said, swinging her legs to one side of Onyx and touching her toes to the ground. The second her sore feet hit the ground though, she was falling.
And, well, what was a man to do but catch her?