Page 53 of How to Keep a Fae

At the patrol leader’s call, we pick up the pace to a brisk canter, bringing the conversation to a stop.

Adaline

When I return to House Silva, I find my mother waiting for me.

On the surface she is still the cool, collected mistress of my house, but behind her eyes, is the woman who gave birth to me, who once loved and lost, and who has borne that burden of tragedy ever since.

I was her first and only child and the warrior she lost my father.

She takes me to her room, a single study, with a nest hidden behind a curtain and out of view.

I sit on the chair opposite her desk at her indication.

“Will you sanction this?”Aurelius asked.

“I will not,”the chosen replied.

Those words as going to haunt me. I’m not in the right frame of mind for whatever this is with my mother. Maybe I never will be.

“What did the king want?”

“Am I supposed to tell you?”

Her lips tighten.

I take that to mean that no, I’m probably not meant to disclose what happened. Yet I am feeling reckless and whatever the king did to me lingers and it has a freeing effect on my tongue. Not that I remember much, and what I do is oddly hazy.

“I have foresight. I’m still a feeder, at least so the chosen who tested me said.”

She sucks in a sharp breath, whether at the mention of a chosen or the foresight, I can’t tell.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were mated to my father… Why did you insist I be in your house when you despise the sight of me? Why did you pretend he was nothing, that emotional connections are a bother a sensible fae should do without?”

Her next breath is ragged. “You think I don’t love you? That I didn’t love him?”

Gods, I’m so tired, and wounded deep inside, layers upon layers. I’m nothing special, just another fool feeder who fell in love with two warriors she can never have, one whose mother does not want her, and whose father is dead. “What other conclusion could I make?”

“I wanted to protect you.” Her eyes glisten. “To stop you from making my mistakes To ensure you never felt this kind of pain.”

Tears are trickling down my cheeks. I don’t remember when they began.

Pain. Current pain. Not past pain. She lost a mate and there is no easing of that burden nor taking it away. “He was your mate, but he was also my father, and I never got to know him.”

She is crying too, I realize.

“I wanted to die,” she says quietly. “Most omegas who lose a mate do. They try to bond them with another alpha and sometimes that can work. But I was carrying you, and I could bear no other’s touch. I lived for you, for the piece of him that was left, for the reminder of something pure and true.”

“You should have told me.”

“I can’t even speak his name. How could I tell you about how wonderful he was when I couldn’t even say his name.” Her face crumples and her hands go to the center of her chest. “He’s gone, but I still feel an echo of him here. And in you. It hurts to look at you. My own daughter. The one and only person whom I love unconditionally.”

I don’t remember moving but we come together forthe first time I can recall. Her sweet omega scent swallowing me, her low purr like a forgotten memory.

“There was an imperial there,” I say between sobs. “He asked the chosen if he would sanction us. The chosen said he would not.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I want to cling to the hope that this is for the best, but I’m a grieving fae, and also your mother, and I don’t trust my judgment anymore.”

August

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