“Sounds like an interesting childhood,” Helena said, in a dry tone that said she knew just how “interesting” it must have been.
Conal snorted. “That’s putting it mildly. I spent the next seventy years trying to make sure my father didn’t get killed. There were a couple of World Wars in there -- we fought with the Allies. Taran loathed tyrants, and he and his people were warriors first, last and always.” He grinned. “Ferrel always said nothing relieves boredom like a cannonball flying past your head.”
“Ferrel?”
“My father’s second-in-command.” He hesitated, eying her for her reaction. The Morven Sidhe had a different attitude toward sex than humans. “And his lover. In some ways, he was as much my father as Taran.”
To his relief, she didn’t turn a hair. “Where do the twins come into this?”
“In 1978, my father fell in love with a sculptor named Hope Donovan. He always had a weak spot for artists.” Catching Helena’s blink, he explained, “Dad had more aliases than a serial killer. I took Hope’s name as a memorial. He and Hope married, though she considered Ferrel her husband, too. She got pregnant with the girls in ‘84.”
He fell silent a moment, remembering his father’s happiness with his vivacious mortal wife, who’d loved Ferrel as much as he had. “It was a tricky birth, and my father had to use magic to save her. When the girls were three months old, Hope was having a gallery show. She was out supervising the hanging of her paintings when Ansgar sent Gorin to murder her in the middle of the fucking day. Cut her throat in front of forty people and just gated away.”
“Jesus,” Helena murmured, looking sick.
“We all felt her die, including my father and Ferrel. Dad remembered what Birk had said about Siobhan protecting us from Ansgar and decided to send me and the twins to her.”
She frowned. “Why didn’t he and Ferrel go too?”
Conal remembered the grief and fury on his father’s face, the black despair in Ferrel’s silver eyes. “Dad wanted revenge. He tried to send Ferrel off with us, but Fer wouldn’t leave him. And I didn’t want him to die alone.” He sighed and went back to pacing. “My father opened a gate, gave me the babies, and made me take an oath to protect them.” Conal clenched a fist, remembering his rage and helplessness. “I didn’t want to leave, but Ferrel told me I didn’t have enough magic to be anything but a liability. And I fucking knew he was right.”
“Oh, God, Conal…” The pain in Helena’s eyes took his breath.
“I was standing there in Siobhan’s palace, trying to convince her to protect the twins, when I felt Dad and Ferrel die.” His eyes closed as he remembered the agony of that moment. His mouth curled in a bitter smile. “Fortunately -- or unfortunately -- Siobhan liked the look of me.”
“So you became her courtier.”
“Something like that.” In the depths of his mind, Siobhan hissed, You can do better than that, slut. “It didn’t take me long to realize what kind of hell I’d stumbled into. Trouble was, I couldn’t take the kids and run because of Ansgar. I didn’t have the kind of power my father had, and the king had killed him anyway.”
“Rough spot. Especially with two kids to protect.”
“Three, counting Siobhan’s daughter, Iona.” Conal forced himself to meet her gaze and told the truth he’d never given voice. “So I whored. And I did a very, very good job of convincing Siobhan I loved her because I needed her protection for my sisters.”
Helena went still.
“Siobhan’s daughter, Iona, was five when we arrived at court, and she started hanging around with me and the twins. I think she saw me as a port in a storm. You’d expect the child of a Sidhe princess to be pampered, but you’d be wrong.” He shook his head. “Once I caught Olwydd with her. He was a thoroughly sadistic motherfucker of a troll -- think the Incredible Hulk crossed with Jeffrey Dahmer. There was no way I was going to let him lay a finger on that child.”
Helena recoiled. “I’d damn well hope not.”
“I ended up with six stab wounds and a broken arm, but by God, I got her away from the bastard.” He probably would have died, but Siobhan had healed his injuries.
“How did you get Iona and the girls out?”
“One afternoon I was in the garden with them -- Iona was ten, the twins were five -- and I noticed this phoenix eagle watching us…”
Her brows lifted. “Essus.”
“Yeah. I’d heard Siobhan bitch about Maeve’s menagerie often enough to know a Familiar when I saw one. So I moved under the tree where Es perched and started ‘talking to myself.’” His fingers sketched air quotes around the words. “Told him Iona was Maeve’s grandchild, and that she was in serious danger.”
Helena frowned. “Weren’t you taking a chance? I mean, Siobhan could have killed you. Or the twins.”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know. But quite frankly, it had gotten pretty fucking bad. She’d…” Pain, ripping into his body, shame such as he’d never felt… If you don’t watch your step, those pretty sisters are next. “I’d come to the conclusion that there were worse things than Ansgar.”
She winced, but she didn’t ask, and he was grateful. “We were still in the garden twenty minutes later when Maeve gated in. She gave me Darkbane and started to open a gate to the palace for me and the girls. Unfortunately, Siobhan arrived and blocked the gate, and the fight started. The kids and I were trapped.”
“Christ.”
“I had my hands full defending the girls against her henchmen, even with Darkbane and all Maeve’s beasts. She’d brought her tiger, Essus, Finvarra, the polar bear -- anything with magic and a lot of teeth. Luckily, Iona was able to cast a pretty good shield around herself and the twins. I got them in a corner, put my back to it, and fought like a trapped rat. Right up until Siobhan swore she’d kill all four of us herself if Maeve didn’t agree to be bound by a geas that kept her from using magic against Siobhan.” He shrugged. “Maeve wouldn’t agree unless the geas bound Siobhan too.”
“I always wondered how that came about,” Helena murmured. “What happened after that? Did you join Maeve’s court?”
Conal snorted. “I’d had quite enough of courts. I decided I wanted to become my own man. Luckily, my father had left me enough money and property under enough aliases that I was able to found Donovan International.”
“That would have been in… What? 1990? What about Ansgar?” Helena asked.
“Maeve let the king know I’d saved her granddaughter’s life, and she’d take violent exception to Ansgar’s doing anything whatsoever against me. He wasn’t about to piss off the Mother of Fairies.” Conal shrugged. “But it hasn’t stopped Siobhan from sending assassins. That’s why Maeve gave all us Familiars, to boost our magic when needed. After that, Siobhan and Maeve fell into a kind of cold war. Iona grew up and built a life for herself on Mortal Earth, far from Sidhe politics, and the girls and I have DCN. Everything was going well until…”
“Siobhan discovered Warlock’s Wrath.”