Page 64 of What Lurks Between the Fates

Caldris pulled out my chair for me as I prepared to lower myself into it, freezing in place as Fallon stepped into the dining hall. Her hair wasn’t in the braids I’d come to recognize her by, the chestnut of it draping over her shoulders alongside the gauzy, taupe fabric of her dress. It was nearly translucent as it wrapped around her throat and then draped off her shoulders, revealing a deep line of cleavage that I knew madeher uncomfortable. There was a slit that went high up her thigh, revealing a line of fair skin that matched her mother’s.

Side-stepping the chair Caldris had pulled out for me, I moved toward Fallon at the same time her eyes fell upon me. She hurried forward, dashing away from the guard next to her and crashing into me. I clutched her in my arms, overwhelmed with relief that she’d remained unharmed since the last time we’d seen one another.

“Come and sit, Maeve,” Mab ordered, lifting a foot to kick the chair on her other side out.

“My name is Fallon,” Fallon returned, glaring at her mother as she released my arms and stepped away. I wanted nothing more than to follow after her, to interrogate her about what harm her mother might have caused in the time we’d been separated.

“You are my daughter. Your name is whatever I say it is,” Mab said with a smile as Fallon took her seat.

Her guard stepped up behind her, pushing her chair in neatly as Mab reached over and grasped her hand in hers. The grip was too tight, the subtle wince on Fallon’s face making my blood boil.

Caldris came up beside me, grasping my hand in his, pulling me back to my seat as if he could sense the growing tension within me.

“She’s a big girl,” he whispered as we passed the chairs of other Fae and returned to the seats Mab had designated for us.

I lowered myself into my pulled-out seat, allowing my mate to push in my chair as he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my cheek.

“You two know each other, I take it. What a small world,” Rheaghan mused, turning to the niece who sat beside him.

“We made the journey back to Alfheimr together after the Wild Hunt collected us,” I said, taking the attention from Fallon. She remained pinned by her mother’s glare, withering in her place as the rest of the room turned away from her embarrassment.

“And what, pray tell, was a non-human doing in Nothrek for all this time?” Rhaeghan asked me, taking a sip of his wine.

“Mostly dying, I think,” I said, making him sputter into his goblet. Amusement tipped my lips up despite the tension surrounding the table as Sidhe delivered food to the center of it.

Rheaghan studied me carefully, a smile making his lips spread as he nodded his head and carefully placed his wine goblet upon the table. “I like her.”

“I’m so pleased,” Mab said, a subtle roll of her eyes giving her away as she leaned back from the table and sipped her wine. “I do so love it when you grow fond of my playthings and want me to treat them properly.”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt you to treat your equals with respect rather than torment, Mother. Just a thought,” Fallon said, staring down at her plate as Rheaghan took it upon himself to fill it with food for her.

“She is not the equal to the Queen of Air and Darkness,” Malachi said with a snort, condemning the thought that I was worth more than dirt beneath his shoe.

“Politically, she stands to inherit the Winter Court alongside her mate. I should think that would make her an equal, or near enough, under any normal circumstances. The courts once coexisted peacefully from my understanding, before the wars broke out,” Fallon said, taking a sip of her wine.

Even in her protest of the status quo, she somehow managed to do it more diplomatically than I.

Mab was saved from needing to respond to her daughter’s unwanted suggestion when another Fae at the table spoke up.

“I would like to ask when you intend to release my son from his servitude so that he may take over his rightful place as the heir to Catancia. Not all of us wish to rule eternally, my Queen,” a woman said, the pale, silvery color of her hair being the only similarity between her and Caldris.

Her eyes fell upon Caldris, and the two of them shared a brief, silent exchange. Her skin was darker than his, brown whereas his was golden. Her lips were painted with red, her eyes more angular than her son’s.

“You may take him with you when you depart for Catancia after the Tithe,” Mab acquiesced with a cunning smile, turning her stare away from Twyla until it fell upon me. “But Estrella stays with me.”

“Sister,” Rheaghan said, interjecting before Caldris grasped his hand in mine and raised them, resting our bound hands upon the surface.

“You cannot expect me to leave her here,” he said, gritting his teeth as he stared at the woman who was determined to ruin everything.

“Caldris…” I said, my voice trailing off. He’d suffered for centuries, been a prisoner for his entire life. If the opportunity for freedom was within his grasp…

“No,” he said, the one word shutting down any protest I might have shown.

“Of course, I don’t,” Mab said with a laugh, leaning forward to take a piece of cheese off her plate and take a bite from it. “But it is nice to taunt you with the possibility of freedom. There was a time when you would have done anything for it.”

“Not this.”

“You overstep, Mab. These games cross a line,” Rheaghan said, scolding his sister as he glanced over at us.

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