Page 54 of Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One 2)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She ate pancakes and realized just how much she’d missed her mother’s cooking. She entertained her brothers with stories of quests and faerie glades. She told them about Mick and learning how to scale a tree like an elf.

For this time, this reunion around the kitchen table, she made two years of training sound like an adventure.

And fooled no one.

In the spirit of holiday, chores waited for later. She let her brothers take turns petting Faol Ban, who tolerated the gang of boys stoically. When she lifted her arm, the owl glided from the branch of the apple tree, came to her.

“He’s Taibhse.”

“Why’d you give him such a weird name? Why’d you give them all weird names?” Colin demanded.

“It means ghost, like Faol Ban means white wolf and Laoch means hero. It’s Irish, and they came to me with their names.”

“Why didn’t you give them other names in English?” Colin challenged. “The only one around here who talks Irish is the old lady at Sisters Farm.”

“I do, too,” she stated matter-of-factly, and Colin didn’t respond.

She’d missed her mother’s cooking, Fallon thought, and weird as it was, she’d missed that suspicious, challenging look on Colin’s face.

Travis touched his fingers lightly to the tip of the owl’s wing.

“Would— Say his name again?” he asked.

“Taibhse.”

“Would Taibhse come to me?”

“He might, but you’d need a falconer’s glove. His talons.”

“Fallon doesn’t need a glove because he’s hers.” Ethan looked up at his sister. “Can we ride Laoch?”

“You want to fly?”

Lana, who’d been simply drinking in watching her kids, jerked, stepped forward. “I don’t think so.”

“I’d take them one at a time,” Fallon told her. “Up with me. They’ll be safe. I promise.”

“Come on, babe.” Simon gave Lana a wink. “I know I want a spin. I bet you do, too.”

“Me first! I’m the oldest,” Colin claimed.

“Ethan first,” Fallon corrected. “He asked first.” She whistled.

Laoch didn’t need wings to fly over the paddock fence. He took it in one fluid leap.

Maybe Lana held her breath when her daughter launched into the golden saddle—and muttered a little prayer when Simon gave Ethan a boost up behind her—but she knew when she was outnumbered.

“Hold on to me,” Fallon told Ethan.

Wings spread out; forelegs lifted. And Lana watched her girl and her youngest take to the air with Ethan’s gut-deep laugh rolling.

Magnificent, she thought. Spellbinding. A sister giving her brother the thrill of his life, yes, but more. A warrior on her warhorse.

“She’s the same,” she told Simon. “But not the same.”

“She’s still ours. That’ll never change.”

They took the day for fun, for love. Accepting Colin’s other challenges, Fallon scaled trees, dived from branches, executed flips.

With Travis she walked to the apple tree and the dogs’ graves.

“It hurt Dad most,” he told her. “They were his mom’s. Ethan told Dad they had to go, the night they died. You know how he knows with animals and stuff.”

“Yeah.”

“Dad sat with them, even when they went to sleep, and sat when they went away, you know. It hurt him the most.”

She put her arm around Travis’s shoulders. “They were family, and his family first.”

“They need to know the other stuff. The stuff you’re not saying. I don’t know what it all is. I can see more than before you left, but you can block better.”

“And you know trying to see is rude.”

He only shrugged. “Sometimes you gotta be rude. I know some’s about the sword. Can I see it?”

She took it out of the sheath, and after only a brief hesitation let him hold it. “What’s the word on it? Is it like … the sun?”

“Close. Light. Its name is Light. And none who would use the light for dark will lift it. As I took it from the fire, so will I raise it in battle, and the blood that stains it will be the blood of the beast and all who follow. And though it bring death, its blade shines clean. Light for life.”

Travis handed her back the sword as she breathed out again. “You got spookier.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Do we need to learn how to use swords?”

“Yeah. I’ll teach you.”

“Cool.”

* * *

She’d hoped to put it off at least for a few days. To set aside the hard things and just be home. But Travis was right. Her parents needed to know. All she had to do was figure out how to tell them.

She stayed in the kitchen with Lana when the boys went out with Simon to feed the stock. And with the scent of the ham baking—her favorite—she helped prepare potatoes for roasting.

Surprise return notwithstanding, Lana would put on a feast.

“I did most of the cooking at the cottage. Mallick’s a really terrible cook. It only took a couple of meals to realize you’d done me a big favor teaching me to cook. I got pretty good at it. Not as good as you, but pretty good.”

“You were always pretty good at it.”

“One of the faeries was a baker. She showed me how to make what she called Rainbow Cake. It’s really good.”

“You’ll teach me the recipe?”

“We need a sprinkle of faerie dust—from the little ones. It’s what adds the rainbow. I met Max Fallon.”

“I never thought of using … What?”

Lana, chopping herbs, looked up. “Max? You had a vision?”

“No, Mom, not a vision. I met him. I talked to him, like I’m talking to you.”

“He died, Fallon.”

“I know. It was the first Samhain I was gone. It was, during the ritual, the first … rushing in of power, real power in me. I called him, I guess. I didn’t realize it, not really. And that night, I snuck out to try to track the wolf, and I met him. My sire.”

“Max.” Carefully, Lana set the knife down, walked over to sit. “On Samhain, when the veil thins.”

How her mother would feel, Fallon couldn’t know. But it had to be said.

“He came to me. He loved you, Mom, and me. He’s proud of you, and me. We walked together in the woods, and I took him to the faerie glade. We had the whole night to talk, for me to really know him.”

Fallon went to Lana, knelt down, took her hands. “You need to know what he told me. You need to know he’s happy, and he’s grateful you found Simon.”

“Oh, Fallon.”

As tears fell on their joined hands, Fallon squeezed tighter. “He’s grateful you found someone so good, so strong, someone you love and who loves you, and me. He’s happy you—we—built a life and family.”

“You had that time with him, and that—I can’t even tell you what that means to me. You both got back something that was stolen. I loved him, Fallon. I see him when I look at you and love him. But—”

Fallon felt something release inside her because now she knew. She knew what her mother felt.

“You loved him, and love him, but Simon Swift is the love of your life. Not just your mate, your husband, not just the father of your children. The love of your life. I know it, feel it. I’m glad of it. I’m so glad.”

“You’re so grown-up. I missed so much, so many changes, so many firsts.”

“I kissed a boy.”

“Oh.” Torn between laughter and tears, Lana cupped Fallon’s face. “Mick, right?”

“How did you know?”

“Moms know. Was it lovely?”

“It was … nice. He’s nice when he’s not being a butt. Sort of like Colin. Huh, I just realized that. It was nice,” she said again, “but he’s not going to be the love of my life. I don’t know that I’ll have one of those anyway.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t ever put up blocks to love. Bu

t,” she added, “that kind of love can definitely wait a few years.”

“I thought I was so grown-up.”

“Don’t contradict your mother when she’s being contradictory.”

Fallon laid her head on Lana’s lap. “I have a lot more to tell you, to tell you and Dad.” She eased back, stood. “But they’re coming back.”

“I don’t hear them.”

“It’s probably the elf blood.”

“What?”

“A lot to tell you,” Fallon repeated.

* * *

Nobody, witch, faerie, elf, baked a ham like her mother. Nobody put on a celebration dinner to compare. They ate like kings, with candles flickering and the fire crackling.

She noted the pecking order in brotherworld hadn’t changed. Colin still lorded it over the others with his firstborn-male status. Travis could still, when he wanted, level Colin with wit and words. Ethan remained sunny of nature.

When she caught herself wondering how she could help hone their individual strengths, shore up weaknesses for what was to come, she shoved the thoughts aside.

Not yet. Not yet.

She waited until after dinner, when the boys grumbled about kitchen duty.

“I want to check on the horses. Dad, maybe you’ll come out with me.”

“Sure. I’d like another look at that super steed of yours.”

He took her hand as they walked in the cooling night from the house to the stables.

“What do you want to tell me?”

“I never could fool you. I have a lot, a lot to tell you and Mom together. But I already told her this, and I need to tell you. I met Max Fallon.”

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