The Immortal Highlander

Page 11

Not.
With a groan of abject misery, she forced herself up from the floor. Cowering in a limp little heap wasn’t going to accomplish anything.
If you ever betray yourself, Gram had told her too many times to count, if one of them ever realizes you can see them, you must leave immediately. Don’t dare waste time packing, just get in the car and go as fast and as far as you can. I’m leaving you money in a special account to be used only for that purpose. It should be more than enough to see you to safety.
Gabby clutched the edge of the kitchen counter and closed her eyes.
She didn’t want to leave, damn it. This was her home, the home Gram had raised her in. Every corner was filled with precious memories. Every inch of the century-old, rambling Victorian was dear to her, from the slate roof that was always springing a new leak, to the spacious, high-ceilinged rooms, to the archaic hot-water heating system that knocked and rattled, but steamed so cozily in the winter. And so what if she couldn’t afford to heat most of the house and had to wear layers of clothing unless she was within a few feet of a radiator? So what if it still didn’t have central air and the summers were swelteringly hot?
On occasion she’d been awfully tempted to dip into her escape-the-fairy fund, but she’d resisted. Things would change once she graduated and got a real job. Her finances wouldn’t always be so precarious. Even an entry-level position with a law firm would enable her to start paying off her pile of student loans and begin much-needed renovations.
She spent most of her time in the octagonal turret anyway, either in the library on the first floor or in the upstairs bedroom she’d redesigned for herself when Gram had died. With all the windows open on a summer night and the ceiling fan softly whirring, she could bear the heat. Besides, she loved lying in bed looking out over the sprawling lush gardens (despite the rickety wrought-iron fencing that desperately needed to be replaced). The mortgage had been paid off years ago. She’d planned never to leave, had hoped to one day fill up the too-silent rooms with children of her own.
And now, just because one dratted fairy—
Wait a minute, she thought, her eyes flying open, it didn’t have fairy eyes, remember? In her panic, she’d completely forgotten about its strange eyes. They’d been a single color. Black as midnight. Black as sin but for those golden sparks.
Definitely not fairy. The Fae had iridescent eyes that changed quicksilver-fast, spanning all the colors of the rainbow. Shimmery and quixotic. Never black-and-gold.
In fact, she thought, nibbling her lower lip pensively, it had displayed several baffling anomalies: its eyes; its human attire—really, a fairy in jeans and a T-shirt?—usually the Fae wore garments fashioned of fabrics unlike anything she’d ever seen; and its seeming emotion.
Could she be so lucky? Frowning, she replayed the entire encounter in her mind, trying to isolate any other anomalies. Was it possible that the creature she’d seen wasn’t a fairy but something else?
Heartened by the possibility, she turned and hurried through the dark house toward the turret library. She needed to consult the O’Callaghan Books.
Comprised of nineteen thick, tediously detailed volumes that dated back to the fifth century, the Books were dense with fairy lore, sightings, overheard conversations, and speculation. Faithfully preserved by her ancestors, added to over the centuries, the tomes were stuffed to overflowing with fairy fact and legend.
In there somewhere would be information about the creature she’d seen tonight.
Perhaps, she clung determinedly to the optimistic thought as she hastened down the hallway, the thing didn’t even signify in the fairy scheme of things. Perhaps it had no greater desire to bother her than she had to bother it.
Perhaps she was worrying for no reason at all.
And perhaps, she thought dejectedly many hours later, dropping a dusty volume in her lap as if burned, the moon was made of cheese.
It was a fairy.
And not just any fairy.
It was the worst fairy of all.
And desire? It had it in spades. To bother her? Oh, she’d be lucky if that was all it did. Torture her, play with her for its own amusement, drop her in the midst of some medieval Highland battle and watch her get trampled by snorting warhorses: Those were all possibilities, according to what she’d just read. If it stayed true to form—the thought made her shiver—it would seduce her first. Try to, she amended hastily. (The fact that, according to what she’d read, no mortal woman could resist it was a thought she refused to ponder overlong. That arrogant, vainglorious fairy was not getting a piece of Gabby O’Callaghan.)