“She wanted a wish granted, but that Fae she summoned was incapable of granting it. That Fae returned to the Summerlands and came to me with news of a female desperate for a child, and I sought her out the following evening.”
“A stone circle? Where?”
“Some backwater hovel in Scotland,” Donnatar grunted with a disdainful curl of his lip.
Ivy frowned thoughtfully, not remembering a single mention of Scotland in her mother's journal. She'd traveled almost everywhere else in the world and written about it, so Ivy wondered why that tidbit hadn't made it into the journal.
“Is that where my brother and I were conceived?”
“No.”
Ivy waited for her father to say more, but the smirk he gave her was a blatant clue to confirm he wasn't going to give her anything except exactly what she asked for. She rolled her eyes and elaborated.
“Where in the wide world did you and my mother meet on Beltane the night my brother and I were conceived, and how did you get there?”
“It was a young forest somewhere on this Godforsaken spit of land you call, America. She summoned me using a token I'd given her.”
“And were you aware when you left her, that she was so hurt and battered by what you'd done to her, it took her an entire day before she was able to crawl to the nearest source of water to clean up?”
Ivy slipped the nasty question in as casually as possible, and it seemed from the way Donnatar opened his mouth to immediately respond, then closed it, that he was indeed surprised and thrown off. He struggled not to look at Ilex, who had shifted in his chair to better see his father's expression and seemed quite eager to hear his answer.
Donnatar simply said, “Yes.”
“Did you care?” Ivy pressed, hoping her voice sounded as blank and emotionless as her father's.
“No.”
Uriah squeezed her hand hard enough to make her bones rub together, but it was good. It felt good to know he shared her anger.
Rowena gave an indelicate sniff and an icy smile. “What a gentleman.”
Ivy sucked down a mouthful of tea, rolling an ice cube around her mouth in hopes of cooling the stream of vicious things she had to say. She was suddenly very glad she didn't have Juliet's explosive temper because her father would have had no misconceptions as to what Ivy thought about him if she did.
“So, you sought out my mother and offered to impregnate her?”
Donnatar lifted his shoulder in a lazy shrug. “I'd like to think I was a bit more eloquent than that, but yes.”
“What exactly were the terms of the deal my mother made with you?”
Donnatar’s deer-shaped ears twitched when a fly buzzed to close to his face. “She stated she was willing to do anything for a child. Anything.” He scoffed, “Only the most desperate of fools say such things to the Fae. I could have told her to lie with a rutting boar and she would have if it meant getting with child. But, I was kind.
“I offered her a night of unparalleled pleasure, and in return for carrying my child, she would get to keep hers. She was to summon me on the eve of your birth and give up one of my offspring.”
“That's it?” Ivy asked skeptically.
“That's it,” Donnatar echoed, his lips twisting into a cold, calculating smirk. “She should have bargained to keep the child she bore for the rest of her days, but those are the errors made by desperate women.”
Uriah lifted her hand to his mouth, momentarily distracting her with the stroke of his tongue across her knuckles, followed by a kiss to the back of her hand. It was tender, unexpected, and just what she needed not to blow up.
“If you're a forest god, how much of a forest goddess does that make me?”
Donnatar clearly found that to be a hilarious question, as he threw his head back and roared with laughter. Ilex even gave a chuckle, but his was kind, where their father's was brutally mocking.
“None at all. You have far more magic than the average Green Man, but not nearly enough to be called a goddess.”
“We'll have to disagree on that one,” Uriah cut in, smiling at her in a way that no normal father would appreciate.
Ivy forced herself to smile back, still a little uncomfortable with how out of control she felt when she used sex magic to work up enough power to claim the land.
Both times, she went into it intending to follow the rituals she'd learned in school, and both times, the part of her that was Fae completely took over. Uriah obviously enjoyed it—he suggestively said he wouldn’t mind doing it more often—and accepted it as just another part of her. The level of power she felt and the dissatisfaction she hadn't confessed to Uriah worried her more than a little bit.
The pleasure was off the charts, but there was a moment after she and Uriah had their unbelievably explosive orgasm together, where she looked around and felt like she needed... more.
More men. More orgasms. More everything.
It felt like a whole other entity took her over and drove her to want to find another hard cock to ride. Maybe nine or ten more. When she was in control again, the very idea of letting any other man touch her repulsed her with such ferocity, she felt sick.
She thought back to both those times when she'd claimed the land as hers, and was terrified that if the lions had come too close, that the part of her that was Fae might have lured them close enough to satisfy her sexual urges.
It was something she didn't know if she should or could confess to Uriah. There wasn't a single part of her rational mind that wanted anyone else but him. She loved him. Adored him, and would never want to see hurt in his eyes by telling him the truth.
It was a concern for another time, and something she knew she could talk to Astrid and Callie about later. Both of their families utilized sex magic for their everyday spell-works.
“Did you ever consider letting my mom keep both babies and bring all of us to fairy with you?” Ivy asked, forcing herself to focus. She could worry about her guilty conscience later.
Donnatar gave another bark of cold laughter. “No.”
“Why not? I can't imagine it was easy for you to raise a newborn baby on your own. Wouldn't it have made more sense to let our mother take care of us for you?”
“Hardly,” Donnatar spat. “I was after a child, not a consort. And yes, your mother was a powerful witch by conventional standards, but not nearly enough to be of any real use to me. I got a wet nurse for the boy, here, and began his training when he was old enough to understand his duties.”
Selfish, selfish prick! Ugh! Ivy quickly filled her mouth with another ice cube to keep from speaking too quickly. “When did you realize Mom had stashed me at Haggara?”
“What a horrid but apropos name for a school devoted to witchcraft.” Her father shuddered in disgust. “I did not know the location until recently. In that respect, your mother was very smart in choosing her hiding place.”
“Where did the information come from?”
Her father sighed impatiently. “A coven of witches called the Silver Wives.”
“I've never been affiliated with that coven; why go to them?”
He leaned back in his seat and again pressed his fingertips together, regarding her over the tops with something akin to approval in his gaze.
“I was told they were the most powerful coven on this continent. That with their blood magic, they were capable of providing any service I could dream of. A locater spell was advertised as the easiest thing in the world.