Page 18 of Tempting the Fae Lord
He squirms. I’ve made him uncomfortable. Such was not my intention.
“You were asleep in your cradle. Blonde curls already fully formed around your crown. Green eyes like the fae babe that needed your spot. I set him down next to you, and right away he reached for your hand. You could have been twins. You woke, spotted him, and grinned. He laughed. It was a shame to separate you.
“But a storm was raging outside, and I needed to get you through the gate quickly and unharmed, so I swaddled you up and lifted you into my arms. The moment I plucked you from your bed, you began to wail. Strong and piercing, louder than the thunder clapping with you as though raging on your behalf.
“I tucked you tight to my chest and ran from the house before your parents could catch me in the act. There was a moment when I thought the fae babe wouldn’t fuss, which would make no sense when they came to check on a crying infant, but eventually he did, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Outside, hail pelted my head and shoulders, raining sideways in the blustery winds. Lightning lit the town, and for a split second, I saw your father’s shop haloed in the eerie glow. Horseshoes, tools, daggers, and chain mail until it was all washed in shadow a second later.
“You screamed and cried and writhed in your swaddle the entire long trip back to the gate. So much so that I sang to you as I flew us home, hoping to calm you, to offer some comfort, but you would have none of it.
“Somehow you worked a hand free, snuck it into my shirt, and dug your tiny little fingernails into my chest. I’d never taken a babe so angry with being stolen as you were.
“By the time I made it back through the gate, I was bleeding, and you’d wriggled entirely out of your swaddle. I had to cling to you with both arms to keep you from flailing out of my hold.
“I was eager to hand you off to Eulayla. I found her in the kitchen, preparing pap, but when I went to pass you over, she shook her head fiercely and stepped back. ‘You mustn’t,’ said she. ‘I’m sick. Don’t want to get the baby sick too.’
“‘But he hates me,’ I said. You and I made eye contact then, and if looks could kill, there’d be no one left to guard the gate.
“She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s a baby, you fool. He doesn’t know how to hate.’
“I don’t often doubt Eulayla, but I did then. She pulled out a chair and pressed me into it. ‘Here.’ She handed over the pap. ‘This will settle him.’
“Ha! Wishful thinking if there ever was such a thing. You were not settled. You were as far from settled as a queenless swarm of honeybees. You batted away the bottle—which ended up in shattered clay pieces all over the floor—and yelled your little heart out.
“I rocked you. I patted you. I sang to you, but you were inconsolable. It took hours for you to cry yourself to exhaustion,and during that time, Eulayla sat with me and coached me on how to care for you, even though she was ill and near to fainting from fatigue.
“When you finally gave up, your little face was blotched red, but your emerald eyes held no defeat. Only a sad sort of weariness I was sorry to see on one so young. We watched each other in silence, me with trepidation, you with melancholy, until Eulayla spoke up. ‘What’s to be his name?’
“‘How should I know? You pick.’
“‘No, you,’ she said. ‘This one wants you to choose.’
“‘And how do you know that, hmm? I never name them.’
“She shrugged. ‘Yet you’ll name this one.’
“I’ve never had a companion so willing to boss me around as Eulie. There’s no denying her when she’s made herself clear. So I continued to study you, your honey wheat skin, your red face, your tangled curls, messy from the ferocious wind we battled on our journey. And your name came to me. Gale. For the storm.
“You focused when you heard it, watching my lips as I repeated myself. ‘Gale?’
“‘Suits him,’ said Eulayla. ‘He likes it.’
“That was the first time I saw you smile. And it would be the last time that night because just after you gathered your strength and began to wail again, Eulayla handed me a freshly prepared bottle. ‘He’s ready for it now.’ And so you were.
“I fed you. You ate until your tummy bulged. Then you slept.”
I remember laying him down in the same cradle the fae babe sleeps in now, so relieved he’d finally stopped bawling.
“And that is the truth of your trip through the gate and how you came to be called Gale.”
The same fierce green eyes pin me now as they had done then, only this time the wisdom of his years shines through. My tiny Gale, grown up and still as restless as he ever was.
“Then what happened?”
“What do you mean, then what happened?” I laugh. “You grew up here, obviously. Eulayla and Chester raised you. You constantly got yourself into trouble, and I constantly was called to collect you from it, and now you’ve waited up the whole night half-frozen so as to give me heart palpitations upon my return, you mooncalf. That’s what happened next.”
He laughs. Of course he does. A tinkling merry sound at my expense as usual. “No, I meant directly. When the sun rose and you had to leave me.”
