I manage not to flinch away from him, but it’s a near thing. My pulse skitters at how tightly they’re closing in around me now. “They’re called jeans. They’re very popular in America these days.”
More fae nose in on our gathering, volleying another question and another. “Have you been out to the pastures yet?”
“Are you going to stay here forever?”
“Do you know any crafts?”
“Will you be hunting with us?”
“What of your human family?”
I have no time to come up with answers under that bombardment, and the last question gouges straight through my heart. The smack of pain constricts my throat. Before I can manage to regather my smile and my voice, a wiry figure elbows her way through the throng to my side.
The woman who reaches me is the first faerie I’ve seen who actually looks old, so she could have a couple of millennia on me. Her serene forest-green eyes study me from a pale, wizened face framed by tight coils of slate-gray hair. She stands half a head shorter than me but not at all stooped, her posture straight and bearing commanding enough that I doubt she bows to anyone other than Sylas. There’s a kindness in her expression, though, that lessens the ache of my loss like a balm.
She spins to frown at the others, who’ve already backed up a step, whether out of respect for her seniority or her general presence, I can’t tell. “Let’s not badger the poor thing,” she says in a spirited if raspy voice. “I’d imagine she was overwhelmed plenty already before you lot started hailing questions on her head.”
“It’s all right,” I say, not wanting any of the pack members to think I’ve taken offense, as grateful as I am for her intervention.
She glances at me with a twinkle in her eyes and a wry tone that makes me like her even more. “Very polite of you to say so. Speaks well of your upbringing. Still…” She turns back to the other fae. “Give her some space. August isn’t the fickle sort. I expect she’ll be here more than long enough for you all to indulge your curiosity bit by bit rather than in a deluge.”
The others start to drift away with a few offers that I should seek them out if I’d like to see this one’s garden or that one’s weaving, leaving only the wizened woman and Harper, who’s stayed with an air of impenetrable confidence as if it never occurred to her that the woman’s orders might apply to her too. I don’t mind. Two is a much easier number to cope with than a dozen.
I lower my voice in the hopes that the other fae won’t overhear. “Thank you.”
The newcomer pats my arm. “Think nothing of it, my dear. Our days around here tend to be much the same, so it’s not surprising they get overeager with the appearance of someone new, but that’s no reason you should have to weather a storm of interrogation.” She steps away herself. “I’m often out on sentry duty, but if I’m around and you need a helping hand, you can always ask for Astrid.”
“Thank you,” I say again as she heads off.
Harper tucks the silky fall of her hair behind her ears, as if she’s anxious about making a good impression herself. “If there’s anything in our territory you might like to see—I don’t know what sorts of things you enjoy—I’d be happy to show you around. Without too much badgering.” Her shy grin suggests she has at least a few more questions she’d like to ask.
Explore the domain—experience more of this world I’ve spent the past nine years in but have seen so little of. My spirits lift at the idea, but a twinge of fear deflates some of that elation. How safe is it for me to roam farther beyond the keep, especially without Sylas or his cadre ready if the wrong fae crosses paths with us?
“I—I’m not sure,” I say, stumbling. I don’t want to dismiss her friendliness. If I’m going to be living here for a while—maybe even forever—I’ll probably be happier the more I integrate with the pack. And Harper seems like one of the friendliest of them, with no sign that she’s put off by my mortality. “I should talk to August before I make any plans. I think he’d be worried if he came looking for me and found I’d wandered off without telling him.”
He probably would be, and Harper doesn’t appear to take offense to the excuse. “Well, whenever you want to.” She pauses and sidles closer, her voice dropping to a stealthy undertone. “What Astrid meant to say is that living here can be unspeakably boring. But I think you just might change that.”
She looks like she might say more, but at Sylas’s return, she settles for flashing me another grin and meandering off toward the forest. The fae lord sets his hand on my shoulder again, watching her and then glancing down at me with a trace of amusement. “Already making friends, are you, little scrap?”
I’m comfortable enough with him now to wrinkle my nose at his old nickname for me, even though I kind of like it—or at least the tenderness with which he says it. “Maybe. She seemed as if she’d like to be friends.”
He nudges me toward the keep, and we stroll across the grass to the main door. In the entrance room, he stops and turns to face me. “It might do both you and Harper good to spend some time together. She’s one of the few of the pack who was born in Oakmeet and hasn’t had the opportunity to venture beyond this domain… She’s dedicated enough to have remained with us when she could have struck out on her own, but I can tell she’s restless. As I suppose you must be too after staying cooped up so long.”
“I can’t complain about the treatment I’ve gotten here.” My gaze travels back to the door. “But it was really nice getting outside. Do you think—she suggested that she could show me more of your territory—would it be safe?” And there’s also the matter of my foot. Disguised or not, with the misshapen bones and their perpetual ache, I’m not up to any extended hikes.
Sylas pauses, considering. “Until the most immediate concern of Aerik is dealt with, I’d prefer that you remain within hearing—in the fields around the keep, on this side of the hills, or no more than a few steps into the woods. One of us can reach you quickly at a single shout, and it’s unlikely anyone would harass you that close by anyway. Perhaps we could arrange a venture farther afield with appropriate transportation and August accompanying you when the timing seems right.”
“Okay,” I say. “That makes sense.”
He gazes down at me and strokes his fingers over my hair, trailing heat in their wake. “I want you to have as normal a life as I’m capable of offering you here, Talia. I know what it’s like to lose a home you loved and to be unable to safely return… Whatever is in my power to make up for that loss, you’ll have it.”
The intensity of his tone strikes a chord deep inside me. A home he loved—the Hearthshire he still uses in his title, even though he and his pack haven’t lived there in ages. That they were driven from after his soul-twined mate was killed over the crimes she committed.
I swallow hard. “You still miss your old domain a lot, don’t you?”
He shrugs, but with a weight to his shoulders that stops the gesture from looking remotely casual. “It was the first territory that was truly my own, and we built our home there from the ground up by our own power, with every feature I could have wished for. The thought of it falling, neglected, into disrepair…” A growl creeps into his voice. He dismisses it with a shake of his head. “We will have it again. As many centuries as it takes, I will earn it back for us.”