“Sounds like a plan.” Kheelan picked up the motorcycle helmet on the ground beside him. “I’ll follow you on my bike.”
Skye lit the salt lamp and the candles scented with frankincense and jasmine. Despite her determined questions through dinner, she couldn’t quite read Kheelan. She inventoried what she did learn: he’d lived all over the Southeastern United States, loved motorcycles, and he either had no family or had lost all contact with them. She knew he was being evasive, but she was equally certain he was a person who spoke the truth and detested deceit.
He fascinated and excited her.
Kheelan pushed the empty sandwich wrapper away on the coffee table. He turned his body sideways on the sofa and faced her. “Tell me what’s going on at The Green Fairy.”
“First, explain how you know something has happened there.” She could be evasive too.
They regarded each other like wary animals.
“I’m something of an expert with the Fae,” Kheelan said, stabbing the straw in his drink before he set it aside.
She waited.
He reluctantly held out his right hand with the vivid colored tattoo. “Do these symbols mean anything to you?”
Skye gazed down at his clinched fist. Beneath the knuckles she saw an intricate design of a black feather encircled by a wreath-shaped Celtic knot.
She shook her head. “I know the knots are Gaelic. I’m guessing the feather represents the freedom of a bird.”
“Just the opposite.” Kheelan withdrew his hand, his face a mask of bitterness. “It’s an ostrich feather, symbolizing willing obedience. The knot around it is for binding.” He gave a dry laugh. “Believe me, there’s nothing willing about my obedience. It was forced on me before I was two years old.”
“Obedience to who?”
“The Fae, the Seelie Court specifically. Are you familiar with fairy lore?”
If he could open up, so could she. “I’m a witch. A crappy, useless one most of the time, but I was raised in a coven. A few members were into fairies and I learned there are two camps – the good, Seelie, and the bad, the Unseelie.”
“A gross oversimplification. Just as humans aren’t all good or all bad, neither are the Fae, no matter what court they belong to.”
“That makes sense.” Still, she was glad he was on the side of the good.
“They take all kind of forms,” he continued. “There’s the small elemental sprites, pixies, like you saw with the hagstone. They can have great beauty or be hideously ugly, be large or small, or appear in any color.” He leaned forward, his face inches from hers. “They can even take human form for long periods of time.”
Skye stared at his sensual lips, the urge to kiss him nearly irresistible. Tanner was the only one who had ever tempted her like this before. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. He was telling her the most incredible things and all she could think of was how it would feel to be in his arms. She opened her eyes. “Please Kheelan, don’t say you’re not real, that you’re one of them.”
He jerked back in revulsion. “No way, I’ll never truly be a part of their world.” He paused. “Skye, I’m a changeling.”
Her mind scrambled, remembering childhood tales. “You were somehow switched at birth?”
“Right. I’m as human as you.” He stopped abruptly and his eyes darted to her hair before jerking away. “The Fae substituted one of their own in my place, and took me to live in their world.”
The words left her speechless, but she didn’t doubt his story. She’d grown up in a coven after all. And the man didn’t even blink when she confessed she was a witch, he deserved the same courtesy. Switched at birth, a fairy baby left in his place –
“Kyle.” Skye jumped up from the table. “Kyle was exchanged for you. That’s why the two of you could pass for twins.”
“I’ve checked the Fae records against the human records, and I’m positive. The fae glamorized Kyle so that he physically appears like me.”
“That’s so –” She faltered. “—so mean. Why did they do such a cruel thing?”
Kheelan came around the table, took her arm and pulled her down to sit in the chair beside him. He held out his tattooed hand. “For this. To make me an obedient servant to their capricious whims, to help them in their battle with the Unseelie.”
The despair in Kheelan’s voice made her throat constrict with sympathetic tears. She placed her hand over the branded symbols. “It’s not right. They have no right.” And she thought she had it tough growing up.
He put a finger underneath her chin and raised her face to meet his. Her heart tripped a beat at the contact.
“Be that as it may, at least I serve the good side. And they are in danger, Skye. The Unseelie draw closer daily, grow stronger. Say you’ll help us.”
“I don’t see how I could possibly help.” It was hard to concentrate when he was so close she could smell his lime and musk scent, feel the heat of his skin. Maybe he was putting out some kind of fairy pheromones that could spellbind.
If so, it worked.