Page 2 of Love Beyond Wanting
Machara laughed, but Athdara could see the faerie’s fatal flaw.
“Ye are not his blood.Yer words will have no pull on him.As he grows, he will see ye as little more than the woman who saw him fed and clothed.His loyalty will lie with those whose blood runs through his veins.”
Athdara waited until Machara was gone, but once the faerie was out of sight, she laughed.How little Machara knew of humans and love.Blood means little.Family comes from the heart.And this boy—this half-fae rarity—would grow up to be kind and good and brave—nothing like Machara.
He would be her son, and she would love him completely.
Chapter 1
Boston, Massachusetts
Present Day
My alarm didn’t wake me—I’d turned that off hours ago after realizing with delight that the one and only good thing about Laurel being in Scotland was that she wasn’t around to bully me into going to therapy.After this many months, I figured it was acceptable to skip one time.In my mind, it was the biggest waste of an hour each week anyway.But rather than enjoy a lazy morning in bed with my cat, my phone dinged at seven-thirty a.m.on the dot with a text message from my rehabilitation therapist, Sue.
Laurel called before she left for Scotland.I know she’s not there to get you up and around.If Dr.Ackard doesn’t call me at 10:00 to tell me you were at your session, I’ll not be at ours at 11:30.See you in a few hours!:-)
Groaning, I stretched and reached down to pat Mr.Crinkles, my solid black, one-eyed, relentlessly ornery cat who lay curled up on the far corner of my bed.He began to purr.
Ever since the fire that took my right arm and my cat’s left eye, Laurel and Sue had embodied the very definition of “tough-love.”Even immediately following the accident, when I was still in unbearable pain and wading through tremendous grief over losing my arm, Laurel wouldn’t do a thing for me.She wanted me to do everything on my own.Even when I threw self-pity-fueled temper tantrums—which happened more often in those first few months than I cared to admit—she never caved.
Sue was no different in my sessions with her.She pushed me to my breaking point every week.As a result, each week I grew stronger.I owed both of them so much, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t still incredibly pissed to get her unwelcome text message at—what was for me—the ass-crack of dawn.
It was the one part of her work with me that drove me mad.Sue was the best rehabilitation therapist in Boston, but she would only accept clients who agreed to see a counselor each and every week while under her care.In theory, I understood her reasoning.Most of her clients were recovering from terrible accidents or illnesses and were learning to work with the body they now had.Of course there were psychological issues that needed to be worked through after such a tragedy.
But what Sue didn’t seem to understand or believe, no matter how many times I tried to tell her, was that I had already worked through all of my feelings about the accident.It had happened.It was awful.It was time for me to move the hell on.
“Knock knock.”In her signature style that wasn’t really knocking, my motherknockedon the door by saying the words out loud while she pushed the door open without permission.“I brought coffee.”
I smiled and scooted myself up in the bed.Despite my insistence that I didn’t need her help, Mom had flown up to Boston from her home in Florida the day after Laurel left for Scotland.She’d been showering me with attention, and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t milking it just a little bit.So many of the things Laurel would never do for me, Mom would, and since it delighted her so much to feel like she was helping me, I allowed it.Or at least, that’s the excuse I made for myself when I started to feel guilty for letting her do things that I was entirely capable of doing on my own.
“How did you know I was up?”
“I didn’t.If you weren’t, I was going to wake you.While you were showering yesterday morning, Dr.Ackard’s office called to confirm your appointment this morning.I told them you would be there.”
Silently, I took the cup of coffee as I watched Mr.Crinkles lean into my mom and begin to purr.He was such a ham.
“What if I wasn’t going to be there?”
Her scrunched brows made her look as if she didn’t understand the question.“Of course you’re going to be there.Sue won’t see you otherwise, and you can’t afford to miss one of your sessions with her.”
“Sure I can.All we’re working on now is strength and range of motion in my shoulder.I can work on those things from home.”
Mom continued as if she couldn’t hear me speaking.“I made eggs Benedict again—your favorite.”
She’d made it every morning since arriving.While it was indeed my favorite meal, I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d tired of it days ago.
“Thank you.You really don’t have to cook for me every morning.Sometimes, a bowl of cereal would be just fine.”
She smiled and waved a dismissive hand as she stood and turned toward the door.
“It’s no trouble.I enjoy doing it.”
She paused as she reached the door and looked down at the mess of open books I had spread out over my desk.“What’s all this?”
I couldn’t possibly tell her all that I was researching, all that Laurel was up to, or the fact that my sister was most likely chilling in the seventeenth century.“It’s nothing.Just doing some research.Trying to brainstorm ideas for Laurel’s next book.”
She twisted her head to the side and looked at me skeptically.“Laurel’s next book?”
