I can’t stop smiling. I’ve only known him for two weeks, but they have been the best two weeks of my life. When a person finds their soulmate, they know. And I knew the moment I looked at him. It was electric.
I’m about to go meet him in our usual spot. We keep our love hidden from everyone, because many wouldn’t understand. I don’t care what others think. I just know what I feel.
Sorcha bit her lip as she reread the last paragraph. Could her mother have been trying to say that her love was Fae? There was an argument for that. It could also mean that he wasn’t a Druid. What was obvious was that the man wasn’t from Skye, and that was all Sorcha could decipher for certain.
She read a few more pages where her mother continued to speak about how happy she was. The entries took place over the course of a month. Then she came to the next page.
August 12th
I knew this day was coming, and I’d thought I prepared. But nothing could have prepared me for what I felt when he left. I can’t stop crying. My sister keeps asking me what’s wrong. I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone about us, but it’s so difficult. I’m bereft without him. He’s taken my heart with him.
At least he promised to return as soon as he can. When he does, he said we’ll be together forever. Since he has others he needs to answer to just as I do, I’m trying to be patient. What’s a few months when we’ll have years together?
I know that, and yet, I can’t stop feeling as if I’ll never see him again.
Sorcha hesitated before she read the next few passages.
September 2nd
I’m pregnant! I can’t wait to tell him. He’s going to be so thrilled. Our family will have grown by one when he returns. The only way I could be happier is if he was here to share the news with.
November 29th
He was supposed to be back by now. I’m getting worried. I’ve had to lie to my family and tell them I had a one-night stand with a tourist. I kept putting off telling them anything, hoping he’d return. Then I started showing, and I had to tell them something. Molly is excited. She keeps telling me she’s going to have a sister.
January 5th
That feeling I had that I’d never see him again grows each day that he doesn’t return. I keep a little hope that I’m wrong, but I know I’m not. I already lost one man I loved. Now, it seems as if I’ve lost a second. Maybe I’m cursed.
My sister would probably say I was suckered, but she’d be wrong. If she had experienced everything I did with him, then she’d understand. She would see that he didn’t lie or use me. He loved me as much as I loved him. We vowed to spend the rest of our lives together. Magic bound us. He never would’ve done that if he didn’t mean it.
April 20th
My beautiful Sorcha was born today. She, like Molly, will grow up without a father, but that’s all right. I will love my girls enough to make up for it. And I’ll make sure both of them know enough about their fathers so they don’t think I’m hiding things.
I wish I could tell Sorcha everything. Perhaps one day I will. Until then, the secrets will stay with me, buried alongside my broken heart. She’s a Skye Druid. The Druids born on Skye are very powerful. No one will think twice about how much magic she has. Skye is the safest place for her. Until she’s ready to know the truth.
Sorcha felt as if she’d been punched in the gut. She read the last passage over and over again. It didn’t outright say that she had Fae blood, but there was enough there to allude to it. She dashed away the tears that fell onto her cheeks and hurriedly read the rest of the journal entries. No more did her mum mention her magic, secrets, or the man who hadn’t come back for her.
By the time Sorcha closed the last journal, she had more questions than when she’d first started reading. What was it that her mother had wanted her to know? And why did it matter if a Skye Druid and a Fae found love? Nothing said that a Druid couldn’t be with a Fae. For most of Sorcha’s life, the Fae were revered on Skye. It had only been recently with the mess with the Others and Usaeil that things had gone south.
Now, it was well known that being with a Fae could ruin a person from having a relationship with a mortal. Sorcha had used to scoff at that. In fact, she and her friends had once said they would rather have a Fae since their choices for mortals were…lacking.
Sorcha gathered the journals and rose to carry them back to her mother’s room. She didn’t put them between the mattress. Instead, she put them on the shelf in the closet. On her way back to the living room, she passed the chair she’d sat in to speak to Cathal and was reminded how he’d healed her ankle.
He had promised to tell her the rest of what he’d come to say. She wasn’t sure what that could be, but she couldn’t help but be curious about it. There was so much about her past that had been kept a secret from her. Her life had been so normal, that it had never dawned on her that she was different from her sister. From an early age, she remembered her mother practicing magic with both her and Molly.
Sorcha could go back to burying her head in the sand as she had for ten years. Or she could call for Cathal and find out the rest. Once she heard everything from him, she would then dig into her past and see what else she could discover. Maybe Rhona knew something. Someone had to know something. She wasn’t just going to take Cathal’s word for it. He was a Dark, after all.
Then, it hit her. Her father might have been Dark. Is that why Cathal had sought her out?
“Bloody hell. Is he my father?”
She hoped to hell not because it would be really awkward to be attracted to her sire. Sorcha put that out of her mind before she made herself sick. Then she walked around the coffee table, weighing her options before she finally stopped.
After a deep breath, she said, “Cathal.”
In the next instant, there was a knock on the door. “It’s me,” he called.
She licked her lips and walked to the door before she unbolted it and opened it. The minute her gaze landed on him, the tension inside her began to ease.
“I’m glad you called for me.”
“Come in,” she beckoned as she stepped aside.
He walked past her into the house before he turned and waited as she closed the door and faced him. “Are you all right?”
“No,” she said with a half-laugh. “I dug through my mother’s journals to see if I could find anything. She mentioned a man that she’d met. They hid their affair. She doesn’t mention that he’s a Fae, nor does she note his name.”
Cathal’s red eyes held a hint of sorrow. “That must have been difficult to read.”
“He promised to come back for her, but he never did. My mum talked about him when I was younger, but it never dawned on me to ask his name. Maybe because Molly, my sister, never asked her dad’s name. Of course, we knew it, but…” She trailed off and shrugged. “Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t ask. Is there any way you can find out if he was Fae?”
“I—” he began hesitantly.
Sorcha held up a hand and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I had no right to ask that. Forget I said anything.”