Page 69 of Gifted Thief
‘I don’t understand.’
He set his jaw. ‘Your mother was engaged to me.’ I sucked in an astounded breath. He ignored it. ‘But because I am the Bull, she grew unhappy and left. I assume he thought that because you were her child, I would take good care of you.’ He looked at me. ‘I swore to keep you alive.’
‘Because you’re the Bull, she split up with you?’ I asked, puzzled. He rolled his eyes at the same moment I realised what he meant. ‘Ohhh. You’re not called the Bull because you’re a big guy. It’s because you think of yourself as a stud.’ I looked at his body derisively.
‘I was younger then,’ he spat. ‘I was a different man.’
He’d have to have been very different for anyone to want to shag him. I stared at him in mock horror. ‘My goodness! You could have been my real father after all!’
He hawked up a ball of phlegm. Before he could do anything with it, I wagged my finger. ‘I don’t think so, Cul-chain.’
He swallowed it back down. Eurgh.
‘So,’ I said, ‘you wanted to kill me because of my aura. And because you want the Foinse to fail. Is that correct, Cul-chain?’
Yes,’ he mumbled.
‘Speak up.’ I nudged him gently with my toe. ‘Is that correct?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Yes.’
‘Was my father really evil?’
‘Yes.’ His gaze was unwavering.
‘If I asked any other highborn Sidhe, would I get the same answer?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about the lower classes?’
He looked away. ‘They’re naïve.’
‘Why do they think differently?’
‘He manipulated them. There are stories suggesting that it wasn’t him. Or that he was possessed by a demon.’ His expression made it clear how unlikely he thought that was.
‘Very well. From now on, Cul-chain, you will not seek to harm me. You will ensure no-one in your Clan seeks to harm me. In fact, you will not seek to harm anyone.’ I smiled. ‘I wasn’t lying. I really am a pacifist. I might have an imaginative interpretation of the word but I’d never have let you fall.’
His eyes spat fire. ‘Evil bitch.’
I shrugged. ‘Evil bitch who’s now your boss.’ Not that I thought he needed reminding. ‘You may leave now.’
He turned tail and ran. As I watched him go, my hard demeanour softened to something more genuine and far more troubled because from the moment, the Bull told me his true name, I’d been able to see a strange halo round him. It was a sickly yellow and it followed him as he spun out of the library door. The aura of the grey-haired man who dropped the pile of books was more of a chocolate-brown colour.
I had no way of interpreting what each hue meant but apparently I could add aura reading to teleportation as one of my gifts. It was a damn shame it wouldn’t be of any use without a colour chart.
Chapter Eighteen
The faint buzzing in my ear still hadn’t gone away. It was incredibly annoying. I tried scratching and slapping at it but they had no effect. It was as if I had a bee trapped inside my ear canal. I wondered if one had flown in during my little skydiving adventure but I’d been too high up for bees – and the buzzing had started before then anyway. Odd.
Bob winked into existence. He’d managed to lose the parachute but he still had a smug smirk plastered over his face.
‘You waste of space, genie,’ I hissed. ‘You almost got me killed.’
He raised his eyes to the heavens. ‘Come on, Uh Integrity. You knew there would be consequences. You told me about them often enough. Besides, it all turned out well in the end, didn’t it? You discovered your Gift and you got the nasty old Bull to tell you his true name. Now you own two people.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘I don’t “own” anyone.’
