Page 81 of Beyond the Faerie Gate

Goddess, she had that expression on her face when she met my wolf.

I will not be jealous of a tattoo. I am the proud descendant of a line of noble wolf shifters. Envy is beneath me.

Damn. Now she’s petting him and he’s purring.

My wolf surges forward in my mind, remembering how good her tiny hands felt in our fur.

For the first time since I was a teenager, I have to forcibly hold him back.

Bricriu gets his beast under control and mounts it, so he’s sitting behind its shoulders as Kitarni finally joins us. Thank Danu. Time to go.

I turn to the redcap. “Me first, as we discussed.”

Rose will join us last, once we’re certain it’s safe for her.

Lorcan sighs and rides closer until he’s within touching distance. He holds out his hand, muttering something under his breath about stretching his power as he blinks me from the sticky summer heat into the refreshing breeze of Elfhame.

We’re just inside the outer wall, on a cobbled path surrounded by fields. Behind us, the outer wall stands strong. It’s easily two hundred feet tall, twenty thick, and made of blocks of solid grey stone which are fitted together so perfectly that they don’t even need mortar to hold them in place.

The ancient fae who built it back in the second era were incredible engineers and I’m grateful for their skill now that I know there’s a Fomorian army camped out on the other side.

Lorcan has blinked me directly beside Florian, who’s in full silver armour, wearing a plain violet tabard which matches his saddle cloth. All around us, the other knights are giving me nods of greeting, and I return them before turning back to the commander.

Rose’s eldest brother is one of the few high fae who might be larger than me. He’s a gruff man, with shoulder-length hair that’s blond like his sister’s, except with silver undertones rather than strawberry ones. He’s grown a beard since I last saw him, and it now covers his square jaw entirely, making him appear older. More like his father. The resemblance is only made stronger by his piercing icy blue eyes—an almost exact replica of Fallon’s—as they rake over me from head to toe.

“Jaro.” The knight commander reaches across the gap between our horses and slaps me on the back in greeting. “You look well, brother. We all wondered where the fuck you disappeared to.”

He pulls back but catches hold of my hand, flipping it over to display Rose’s mark.

“So it is true.” He looks stunned for the briefest second. “I half believed the redcap was making it all up.”

I shake my head. “He wasn’t.”

“I apologise,” he murmurs, dropping my hand. “I knew my mother was gone. The palace even rearranged itself to create more rooms for the new Guard, but I suppose I didn’t want to believe it. Then you disappeared. We thought you were dead, but then we couldn’t find your body, so we assumed you were captured.” He shakes his head ruefully. “I have no idea how I didn’t put two and two together.”

“I didn’t mean to abandon you in the middle of the battle,” I reply, glancing up at the palace in the distance. “But the Call happened, and I didn’t really get much say in the matter. One second I was fighting alongside you, and the next.” I shrug. “Poof, I’m in front of Rose in a cave.”

It was one of the strangest days of my life. I killed one Fomorian, turned around, and was suddenly face to face with a newborn and her exhausted mother—who I’d just seen decapitated on the battlefield hours earlier.

The old Guard were there, surrounding the two of them. They held Diana as they took their final breaths together, and then their bodies disappeared in a shower of light.

Kitarni had been there, waiting to explain everything. Unlike the Guard, who are chosen at the birth of the new Nicnevin with no warning, the high priest was told of his successor years in advance. She’d been training in secret to take her place alongside Rose for almost a decade.

That didn’t stop the dryad’s hands from shaking as she led the five of us in our oath. She cried when Alvar—her mentor and Lady Diana’s high priest—died alongside the old Nicnevin and her males, but it didn’t stop her cleaning and tending the newborn before handing her over to me.

Florian deserves the peace of knowing his parents died in each others’ arms, smiling at their newborn. But I’ll tell him later, in private, when there aren’t so many eyes on him.

“Your Lady Mother insisted Rose had to be kept safe in the mortal realm. I couldn’t just leave her there unguarded for a quarter of a century.”

Florian nods, squaring his shoulders as Bree blinks into existence beside us. “And a púca as well?”

“Commander, you don’t believe the half of it.”

If he can’t believe the two under fae, Goddess save us all when he learns about Caed…

There’s a reason all of the knights used to make ourselves scarce when we heard Florian was in a foul mood and looking to work out his frustration in the sparring ring. He has a fiery temper and the muscle to back it up.

He finally releases my hand and nods at Bree, still seated on his cat-sìth. “Welcome to Elfhame.”

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