No, what sealed the deal for me was when I saw her tough chick fa?ade crack, and the haunted damage show in her tears. She said she didn't want me if all I cared for were her unbroken parts, but she didn't understand.
“Sort of,” I grunted in reply, following her gaze up to my Mama's house. “I was about five when my blood-mama died. She was a wood-nymph and some asshole, a drunk tourist, accidentally set fire to her tree. Anyway, my Daddy had been seeing Linda on the pretty regular so after my blood-mama went up in smoke, he decided he needed a woman to raise me. So he set her up here, knocked her up with Caley, then clean disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“So Linda is …” She blinked up at me with those stunning sapphire eyes and I needed to look away to keep from bending her over my damn bike and slamming my dick into her again.
“His mama,” Reece replied for me, clapping a heavy hand on my shoulder and giving me a smirk. Of course that horny bastard knew exactly what I was thinking. “Or damn near as close as he's got.”
“She's also going to tear him a new one for not telling her about you sooner,” Caley snickered, linking her arm into Ciarah's and tugging her toward the house with her.
Shit. She wasn't wrong either. Mama was not going to be pleased.
Despite being a former Willing Hunt—or rather, a clubwhore—my mama had a temper that could rival even the meanest of fae. She knew about our kind, how could she not? But she was human through and through. It made me love her all the more for having the nuts to live amongst us so long.
“Arlo!” The woman who raised me hollered from the verandah as Caley dragged the Veil Keeper inside with her.
Reece and Killian snickered, following the girls and leaving me to handle my mama alone. As usual. Linda had been known to give me and the boys an earful a time or two in the past and those two always seemed to disappear pretty damn quick.
“Hi, Mama.” I tried to paste on my very best smile in the hope that she'd be so excited to see me she'd drop the angry act.
No such luck, though, as I reached the top of the balcony steps and she grabbed me by the ear like I was five years old again.
“Boy, you got some explaining to do,” she growled at me, yanking me along behind her into the kitchen. How she had the strength to do it, I could never work out. She was barely five foot two and weighed less than a wet cat but somehow she was able to tow me around by my ear like she were fae.
“Goddamn it, that hurts, let me go!” I wasn't playing up for her ego; it really did hurt.
“Well maybe you ought to think before you go messing around with the Keeper-damned Keeper without telling your damn mama, no?” She was mad as hell, I could tell, and I groaned when she let my ear go.
“Mama, you're human,” I said defensively, rubbing at my ear as she glared at me with her hands on her hips. She'd dragged me into her kitchen but I could hear the others waiting in the sitting room.
“So?” She scowled, despite knowing full-well she wasn't privy to fae business. The fact that she knew about us at all was more than most humans were permitted, and it was the reason why she'd been told to keep away from the clubhouse these past few days.
I sighed heavily, again, and turned to start some coffee. I was tired and could seriously murder a cup of joe.
“Mama, you're being childish. You know why you've been kept out of the loop. The Veil Keeper returning is big business for us fae, and everyone's magic has been going all kinds of screwy over it. Hell even my own glamour has been broken more times in the last few days than my entire life combined.” I pulled out some cups from her cupboard and then hunted her pantry for baked goods. Linda baked like a demon, and there were always some sweet treats to be found.
“So what? I've seen you unglamoured before, boy. Don't forget who used to wipe your snotty nose and bandage your skinned knees.” There was a tightness to her mouth that said she knew she was being unreasonable but wasn't backing down.
“Yeah, but what do you think would happen if you happened to see Donal, or hell even Fionn? They wouldn't take lightly to being seen by a human without their glamour. You really wanna test their kindness? Because let me tell you now, Mama, it wouldn't end well.” Turning back to her, I leaned my ass against the counter and folded my arms. “No, best you stay here out of trouble until this is all … over.”
Over? What would over even look like? Does that mean the Veil restored and all the earthside fae allowed to return home? In which case, what happens to people like Caley? Half-human, half-fae, would she crossover or stay here?
“Over,” my mama repeated with a scowl, “and then what? This girl takes you for herself and I never see you again?”
There was a hitch in her voice that betrayed how upset she was feeling. She was one tough bitch normally—she had to be to live amongst The Wild Hunt MC for so many years—so this was as close as she really came to properly crying.
“I don't know, Ma,” I groaned, wrapping her tiny frame in a hug. She practically disappeared under my arms she was so small, and I felt her shaking slightly with unshed tears. In all my years I was yet to see this tough little broad actually cry and I doubted it would start now.
“We'll just take it as it comes. But … she's not some evil witch come to steal me away. She's the Veil Keeper. She is the only one that can save the fae …”
“I know,” Linda muttered, pushing back from my hug and busying herself making up a tray for the coffee, “but you still could have damn well introduced her to me before you went pledging yourself, you know?”
A hot flush of shame heated my cheeks. “It wasn't really something I planned to do.”
My mama narrowed her eyes at me and sniffed in irritation. “Right, well then. Let's meet the girl that stole your heart.”
My cheeks heated even further and I cast a furtive glance toward the sitting room, praying my mama's voice didn't carry through to the damn Keeper. That girl did not need a bigger ego than she already had.
Feeling sufficiently chastised, I followed the little human through to the sitting room, carrying the tray of mugs for her only to find my Keeper missing.
“She went to use the bathroom,” Caley informed me, obviously seeing my look of confusion. Damn chick was more observant than she let on sometimes. But she also had an evil look in her eye that said she was up to no good.
“Caley …” I growled, narrowing my eyes at her as her grin spread wider.
“I sent her to the one upstairs,” she snickered and I groaned for what felt like the thousandth time since getting here. I swear, visiting Mama and Caley fucking aged me.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, placing the tray down on the table and stalking up the stairs. Caley couldn't have just directed Ciarah to the half-bath downstairs; no she needed to send her upstairs to where mama had literally hundreds of embarrassing photos of me and Caley framed and hung on the wall of the hallway.