My heart ached because I thought I understood what she was really saying. I had been around wolves long enough to know what is expected of the alpha. “They would want him to take a she-wolf mate.”
“A proper mate is the term they use,” she explained shortly. “According to the Alpha Council, I’m only good for vampires. I believe they called me a nice meal they couldn’t enjoy properly. Well, one of them called me that. I had to stop Fenrir from killing him. Needless to say, we don’t go to pack meetings anymore, and it’s best I stay close to him. I have to ask. Is Marcus Vorenus dead? Is that why he’s not back with you?”
Marcus. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that everyone on the Earth plane believed Evan was Marcus’s fated companion. Marcus had been promised that a daughter of my line would be the companion to match his soul. It could be hard to be “claimed” by a powerful supernatural. I knew all about that. In the beginning, though I loved Daniel, I’d worried what it meant to be his wife. Was Evan having the same questions about Fenrir? Did she think Marcus could come in and save her? I didn’t understand the situation, so I had to ask. “Sweetie, are you okay with Fen? Has he hurt you?”
Our world had never known a wolf king. His powers could be unstable for all we knew. The only specialized wolf I’d ever known had been the original Lee, and he fought his nature. Kelsey was a kind of wolf, and she’d required a lot of training to tamp down her killer instincts.
“Fen? Hurt me?” Evan rolled her eyes. “Momma, Fen would throw himself in front of a bullet for me. He freaks out if I get a paper cut. And yet he also allows me to do some crazy shit. We had one discussion a long time ago about him smothering me and now we’re fine. Our main issue is Fen promised my brothers he wouldn’t sleep with me until we’re married, and I find that highly annoying. Well, that and the fact that he worries Marcus Vorenus is going to show up and try to take me away from him. If Vorenus is here on the Earth plane, he needs to understand that I’m in love with Fen, and I don’t care what some prophet said a million years ago.”
“Marcus didn’t come back with us.” I stopped myself from trying to tell her that she was seventeen and how could she know if she was in love. The question was dumb given that I’d known I loved Daniel long before the age of seventeen. “He’s married to your sister now, and he’s staying in her kingdom.”
Finally, my youngest showed some shock. “My sister? Momma, were you with Summer?”
“You know about Summer?” I knew Lee had some inkling that he had a sister, but Evan had been so young I’d never discussed Summer with her.
She nodded. “Granddad talked about her. After he managed to find his way here, he spent a lot of time keeping our memories of you alive, talking about you and Dad and Papa. I know way too much, probably more than I would have if you’d been here with us.”
And now my brain hurt again because I remembered my father was dead and somehow he was still here in the form of a young woman.
There was a knock on the door and Evan went to answer it. I couldn’t see from my vantage point, but Evan was whispering, and then she turned back.
“Momma, Shy is here, and she would like to explain if you’re up to it,” Evan said.
I nodded, ready to face the young woman. She walked in, carrying a tray of what looked to be tea and some of Albert’s madeleines.
“Hello, Your Highness.” She set the tray on the table near the hearth. “Albert asked if I would bring you afternoon tea. The Fae keep proper British hours, and it’s tea time.”
“Oh, like you don’t love it,” Evan teased.
“Well, it is nice to have a schedule. God, I sometimes wonder if that’s me or Harry,” Shy said with a frown as she settled in on one of the two chairs there. “You staying? I brought three cups.”
“Does he want me here?” Evan asked. “It might be easier for him to talk to her on his own.”
Shy chuckled. “That old man hasn’t been on his own since the day he died. He’s good. He’s thinking it might be easier on her if you’re here. She’s going to be…difficult. She always struggled with change.”
I frowned. “I do not.”
Shy’s lips turned up. “Maybe you should talk to him.”
I had so many questions. “How did you…just how?”
“I’m a medium. It runs strong through my family line. That’s probably why Myrddin had them all killed.” Shy pronounced the words with no emotion. She merely gestured to Evan, who took her seat and the cup of tea Shy poured for her. “I didn’t realize that the fire that killed my mother and grandmother all those years ago was set by Myrddin. It was shortly after he took the throne by force. I pieced it together over the years. Fifteen fires set in the States on the same night. All unexplained. All killing powerful psychics and mediums. I wasn’t home that night. I was at a friends, and then I got lost in CPS. I think that’s the only reason I’m still alive. Anyway, I was a kid at the time, and I ended up in a psych ward because I came into my powers and had no one to explain how to handle them. I talked to dead people. It scared the shit out of any foster parent I had, and they finally decided that the best way to go was to drug me until I didn’t complain anymore.”
“I’m so sorry.” What else had Myrddin wrought?
“And then one day a few years in, I met Harry. He showed up and asked if he could stay. He talked to me for hours, and not in the way the others had. He actually seemed to care about me. And I started caring about me again. He told me all these crazy stories about a whole world that is hidden from the human one. A world I belonged in. He told me about you and the king and Devinshea and his grandchildren. I wanted that world, so we made our deal.”
Now that sounded like my father. “Deal?”
“I gave Harry some space in my brain. It’s a bit like what the prince has with the ancient god Bris. I can share space with him and not lose who I am. Oh, if Harry was a different man, he could have easily taken over in the beginning. I was a mess, and I wouldn’t have fought him even if I’d known how. Instead, he strengthened me. He talked me through how to get out of the hospital, coached me on what to say. Then we decided to come here. The wards make Frelsi undetectable to the living, but Harry knew where his grandkids were. He made me camp. It was terrible.”
Evan laughed, the sound sweet and familiar since she sounded like her sister. “She was not an outdoor girl, to say the least. Or a cold weather girl. It was so sad. She showed up outside the mountain, and we all felt so sorry for her that we sent someone to talk to her.”
“You sent a brownie,” Shy said with no small amount of accusation. “I’d never seen a supernatural creature before and then this tiny withered thing is talking to me. Although I probably scared her more than she did me. And then she fixed my tent and offered to wash my clothes and I loved her.” She smiled fondly. “It took them another week to finally believe me, and every day Liesl would come and help me. That little brownie gets all the cream.”
I stared at the beautiful young woman. “So he’s inside you.”
“Yes. Like I said, we share space. Harry’s in what I like to call mid-transition. If he hadn’t found a soul space, he would likely would have ended up with the sluagh. He heard them call to him.” The smile on her face had faded. “He couldn’t leave. He knew you would be back and that you would need him.”