Page 12 of The Fae’s Treasure

“Tell her yourself, if you ever bother to visit the poor woman,” I growl, dumping Bonwit (gently) onto the soft forest floor in the strand of pines that spans this little village of houses. I feel bad for Bonwit, but he’s not dying.

My son, on the other hand... I don’t know what Saz has in mind for him, exactly, but I know I’ve put him in harm’s way by not giving her my soul. But there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t have put the both of us in her power if I had made such a bargain with her.

I pace, head bowed, then thrown back. It’s good that my power extends to this mortal plane. And my powers reached into the house. Perhaps I can whisk my boy away with the same gusts that I just deployed?

I picture it—and imagine the red-haired beauty flinging herself between me and the babe, her raging voice and clawing hands, her desperate sobs...

“She fought for him as a mother would fight to her last breath to save her only son,” I whisper, mostly to myself.

“I said that!” Bonwit snaps, sitting up and moaning as he rubs his chest. “I’m half-perished! And for an immortal, that’s saying something.”

“You’re just soft,” I toss out before I think better of it. Bonwit curls his knees to his chest, glares, and sulks, his dramatic moans increasing. “She looks soft, too. Graceful. Lovely. And yet when my son was threatened... Like an October storm, where the days are hot, and the winds are cold, and the explosions in the heavens rattle the earth!” I warm to the subject, voice so full of admiration that Bonwit has to comment.

Loudly. “No! Dairmuid, you’re not falling for the human lass you have to get your babe from, are you? Why wouldn’t you just woo your way into her home instead of putting me through such tortures?”

Because I didn’t think of it. And I still don’t know what to do about the child once he’s free from this realm. Certain things I am sure of. Love him. Protect him. Give him a grand, wild childhood like I had, only better, with far less time at Court, and far more fun and fishing.

But the teachings that fathers ought to give a son, about being a man, about marriage and home, and life and death, and trust and wisdom? I cannot teach a boy those things. I haven’t mastered them myself.

“How did he look? Was he well? Does he have horns?” I whisper that last question with a wince.

“He is beautiful,’ Bonwit stops groaning long enough to speak in a croon, his lips pursed in a simpering grin.

Lovestruck.

“Really?”

“A beautiful babe. No horns. No tail, unless it’s awfully tiny. Red eyes, but crystal clear, like rubies in the sun. Skin like yours, not even a tinge of pink.”

“Wings?”

“I never saw, but if he does, they weren’t big and bat-like like his mam’s, that’s for sure. They’d be tiny, but then again, he’s not old by mortal standards—or even by immortal ones.”

“True, true.” More pacing.

I have options.

Trickery. Bargains. Get into the woman’s house. Take the child, which is rightfully mine.

Wooing. Romancing. Pretending my interest is in the adopted mother, not the child.

Force. Dark magics. Bad bargains, evil doings. Death.

It wouldn’t be the first time fae have killed. Historically, it’s been for something far less grievous than holding a faeling hostage.

“She doesn’t know she’s done anything wrong. She can’t be harmed, this woman. Her defense of my son grants her protection from all the children of the Tuatha Dé Danann,” I intone, as if I can speak into being.

“It may also be that she cannot see that anything is different about the child,” Bonwit points out. “Humans only see what their minds wish. Usually, something shocking has to occur for them to see a being’s true form.”

“Like a child being thrust into their lives and a man flying into the child’s nursery to whisk him away?” I say drily.

Bonwit shrugs and looks a bit bashful. “That may do it. In which case, she ought to be able to see that your son is not quite human in his appearance. She may not have realized it until after she pummeled me, or she may have realized it before. I don’t know. I do know that humans don’t have our deft ways with the fruits of the field and fermentation, but I know they still make a mean pint of something alcoholic, and I could use it. Are you of the mind that we keep watch without ceasing for... weeks? Months?”

“Saz hinted that her power is growing. She needs the child before then, I think. I will keep watch until that time passes if we are not successful before then—but we will be. Must be.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “You go and fetch your pint, if you can now miraculously move. Where does one get such things?”

“Humans have taverns and shops, m’lord.” Bonwit drops my title at the end in a tone that clearly means “you great lard brain.” “I’ll bring you back something. I think you’ll like human food. You help them grow it and harvest it, after all. It’s not light and airy, not so refined or fresh tasting as what we normally eat, but it’s ... It has such a bite, Dair.”

I am relieved we are back on friendlier terms. “Does it?”