My heart stopped for a moment, then picked up again, faster than before. “Who told you that?”
“A very old druid priestess.” He seemed hesitant now, and I caught a flicker of dark blue regret from the corner of my eye. “This was before Ariella, back in the ancient times, when humans still feared and worshipped the old gods and had all sorts of rituals for keeping us out, which of course only challenged us to find ways around them. I was much younger then, and my brothers and I would play our cruel games with the mortals, particularly with the young, silly females we came across.” He paused, tilting his head back slightly, gauging my reaction.
“Go on,” I murmured.
He sighed, and very gently freed himself from my hand, turning to face me. “There was a girl,” he said, choosing his words very carefully, “barely sixteen in mortal years, and as innocent as they came. Her favorite pastime was picking flowers and playing in the creek at the edge of the forest. I knew, because I watched her from the trees. She was always alone, carefree, so naive to the dangers in the woods.” A hint of bitterness crept into his voice, a dark loathing for the faery in the story. I felt cold as he continued in a soft, flat voice. “I lured her into the forest with pretty words and gifts and promises of affection. I made sure she fell in love with me, that no other human male would ever make her feel what I could, and then I took it all away. I told her that mortals were nothing to the fey, that she was nothing. I told her that it was a game, nothing more, and that the game was now over. I broke more than her heart; I broke her spirit, broke her. And I reveled in it.”
I had been waiting for it, but it still made me sick, the knowledge that Ash could be that heartless, just another capricious fey toying with human emotion. This girl, sixteen, lonely, eager for love, had been like me once. If I had been at the edge of the woods that day, instead of her, Ash would’ve done the same to me.
“What happened to her?” I asked when he fell silent again. Ash closed his eyes.
“She died,” he said simply. “She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t do anything but pine away, until her body grew so weak it simply gave out.”
“And you felt horribly guilty about it?” I guessed, trying to glean some sort of moral from this tale, a lesson learned or something like that. But Ash shook his head with a bitter smile.
“I didn’t think twice about her,” he said, dashing my hopes and making my gut twist. “Not having a soul frees us from any sort of conscience. She was only a human, and a foolish one at that, to fall in love with a faery. She wasn’t the first, nor would she be the last. But her grandmother, the high priestess of the girl’s clan, was not so foolish. She sought me out, and told me what I just told you—she cursed me, promised that I would be destined to lose everyone I truly cared for, that it was the price for being soulless. Of course, I just laughed it off as the superstitions of a weakling mortal…until I fell in love with Ariella.” His voice grew even softer. “And now, with you.”
He turned away and gazed out over the edge again. “When Ariella was taken from me, I suddenly understood. We don’t have a conscience, but falling in love changes things. I understood what I had put that girl through, the pain she suffered because of me. I told myself I wouldn’t make the mistake of caring for someone again.” He gave a bitter chuckle and shook his head. “And then you came along and ruined all that.”
I couldn’t answer. I kept seeing that girl, and the dark, handsome stranger she fell for, died for. “Why are you telling me this?” I whispered.
“Because, I want you to understand what I am.” Ash looked down at me, solemn and grim. “I’m not a human with pointed ears, Meghan. I am and will always be Fey. Soulless. Immortal. Because of my actions that day, someone I loved died. And now, here we are, on the brink of war and—” He stopped and looked down, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “And I’m afraid. I’m afraid I’ll fail you like I did Ariella, that the crimes of my past will ruin any chance we have at a future. That you’ll realize who I really am, what I really am, and when I turn around you’ll be gone.”