Page 1 of Evil Eyed
1
You be fucking fae.
Aidan’s words reverberated on an endless loop in my head. I fisted my hands in the front of his T-shirt. “How?” I asked hoarsely. “What do you see?”
I heard running footsteps and shouts as the other three men came at a run. The door to the makeshift tattoo parlor that Hammer had set up in an unused detached garage crashed open so hard it splintered off its hinges. Vivi ducked flying wood and flinched back against him as he swept her behind him.
Doran filled the doorway, a big, mountainous shadow of fury. “What be wrong, love?”
I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. My throat squeezed shut, my mind still reeling. Could Aidan be right? If so, everything I’d known about myself was a lie.
Iwas a lie.
Everybody had lied to me. Even Warwick. Could he have not known? But how?
It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. I’d lost so many memories during the captivity of my marriage to a changeling fae, but surely I would’ve known if I was fae myself. Or Vivi would’ve noticed something strange about me. We’d been friends since grade school. She knew me better than anyone.
I caught her wide-eyed gaze, but she looked as confused and shocked as me.
I had no idea that Faerie was more than a fairytale until I’d accidentally found my way intoShamrocked. I was a regular, average woman who’d worked at a diner part-time while trying to get back on my feet after a devastating divorce. Not… fae, a magical creature with unknown powers.
When I failed to answer quickly enough, Doran wrapped his massive palm around Aidan’s throat and lifted him up off the ground, jerking him away from me. “You’d best be telling me that you’re not the cause of her upset, Slaughterer, or you’ll be feeling the wrath of Stoneheart.” He squeezed harder, making Aidan’s face turn red. “Mark my words, I’ll send you back to Tír na nÓg in wee pieces.”
The sight of Aidan—a large, fully grown man who’d made it his goal to be the most intimidating and formidable biker of the Demon Hunters motorcycle gang—dangling like a kitten in Doran’s meaty fist shook me to my core. Worse, though, was the look of resignation, no acceptance, on Aidan’s face. He didn’t protest his innocence. He didn’t look to me for a quick explanation. He didn’t even try to peel the big man’s fingers off his throat or reach for a weapon.
He’d been waiting for Doran to find a reason to kill him for centuries. I think in some way he’d expected it. Wanted it. A final absolution for his betrayal.
“Doran.” I finally managed to say, though the breathy tone and shell-shocked look on my face certainly didn’t help proclaim Aidan’s innocence. “Is it true?”
“What, love? What has he told you?”
“Am I… fae?”
Doran slowly set the other man down on his feet and released him. “What now? Say again?”
Keane and Ivarr crowded in behind Doran. The four Irish treasures, reunited after I’d managed to break the curse holding Doran imprisoned in his stone gargoyle. The garage had felt roomy until all four of them stood before me.
Ivarr laughed and slapped Aidan on the shoulder despite the red fingermarks on his throat. “Sure now, you had me worried the Ellén Trechend had come to lose its other two heads.”
“What’s that?” Vivi and I both said at the same time.
“The three-headed creature in the cave,” Ivarr replied. “Doran tore off one of its heads so hopefully it’ll retire back to Faerie until it can regenerate.”
Two days ago—though it already seemed like a year—the four of them plus Warwick had gone to clear out a nest of dark fae, fully expecting to die. They’d known it was a trap and they’d gone anyway. They’d refused to use their magic to drive back supernatural creatures because they were worried my ex-husband, a changeling fae, might be able to trace it back to me.
Heroes of legend. Yet blockheads just the same. As if I would want to live alone the rest of my life knowing they’d died horrible deaths to keep me safe.
“The tattoo didn’t take,” Aidan said, his voice gruff—though that was the norm for him. Not because he’d been half throttled by his friend. “Look at her arm and tell me she’s mortal.”
Doran leaned down and looked at the smears of ink that were supposed to be my tattoo. Fresh ink welled on my skin, as if my body completely rejected the foreign substance.
“This’ll tell us what’s up for sure.” Hammer pumped some foamy soap into his hand and lathered my upper biceps. “I’ve seen people have a bad reaction to ink before. Their skin gets red and inflamed. It’ll swell up or break out into a rash with heat. But there’s still ink in the skin. You can see the design where the gun laid the ink.” He dragged a clean cloth over the lathered spot, and the ink just wiped away. “But I’ve never seen anything like this.”
My arm wasn’t even red. I couldn’t see a scratch or tiny puncture wound. Nothing indicated anything had gone into my skin at all, though I’d felt the raspy sting. Other than a few smeared traces of ink, nothing of the four-leaf clover that I’d asked for remained.
Meanwhile, three of the treasures had tattoos all over their bodies, even though they were reincarnated weapons of legend. They had human, mortal bodies with magical gifts. They weren’t fae. The only reason Doran wasn’t covered in tats was because he’d been imprisoned for hundreds of years.
My hands trembled, resting on my thighs.What am I?
