He pointed at his wife. “All that matters to me is her—her and our bairns. If the goddesses force my hand, I will fully embrace the darkness of my Unseelie blood and make all creation pay.”
A flash of light blinded him. He shielded his eyes from the painful whiteness, struggling to regain his sight so he could protect Emily. The ground beneath his feet felt solid, but everything else was misty white nothingness. He blinked hard, then held up his hand and stared at it, thankful he could see once more. His ears itched with buzzing whispers that made him wait for a horde of midges to swarm down and feast on his flesh.
“Are ye cowards, then?” he shouted into the void.
“Gryffe?”
His breath caught in his lungs. That voice. The voice he feared he would never hear again. “Emily!” He squinted harder, trying to see through the fog. “Where are ye, my love? Talk me to ye.”
“I am close,” she said, “because every time you speak, the clouds swirl. Talk so I can follow the movement.”
“Are ye injured? Have they hurt ye in any way?”
“They kept trying to make me sleep, but I told them I didn’t believe in their powers, and it worked. I stayed awake. I haven’t heard from them since.”
The pride in her voice made his heart sing. “They canna stand against the likes of ye, my own. Ye are too canny for them.”
She stepped into view, arms outstretched, swimming through the mists. “Gryffe!”
Catching her up in his arms, he crushed her to his chest, burying his face in the sweet softness of her hair. “I shall never let ye go, my love. Never.”
She clutched him just as tightly. “I don’t know how you got here, but I knew you’d come. I told them you would.”
“Maybe that is how I got here—yer belief that I would.”
She leaned back and smiled up at him. “I will always believe in you. Always.”
“This cannot be,” said a trio of voices, rumbling with distant thunder.
Gryffe drew his Unseelie blade while keeping Emily safely tucked against his side. “This is as it should be, whether ye wish it or not. My wife. My bairns. Do ye truly wish me to wage war against ye? Against the Highland Veil itself?”
“The Veil?” The voices wavered, trembling with barely controlled panic. “Ye are the Grand Chieftain of the Order. Ye would go against yer vows to unleash evil against the Veil?”
“What do ye know of vows? What do ye care?”
No answer came, confirming he was right.
“My Emily and I are bound for all time. Leave us be and all will be well. Fight us on this, and we will wipe yer names from history and erase yer existance from every realm. No one will remember ye. Ever.”
“I told them that too,” Emily whispered ever so softly. “So far, it hasn’t worked.”
“Believe,” he told her just as quietly, giving her a rare smile. His precious woman loved his smiles. He had no idea why, but if it pleased her, he would do his best to do it more often.
Cutting through the mists with his softly glowing blade, he bared his teeth at the unseen goddesses. “Ye make yerselves out to be so much better than all others. Ye claim to be holy and good. And yet, ye do this to one of yer own, her and the bairns, treating them like an unwanted mongrel’s pups ye intend to drown to rid yerself of them—much as ye did Esme and Mairwen.”
He knows echoed over and over throughout the nothingness, growing louder, then fading away only to grow louder again.
“What are you talking about?” Emily asked in the faintest whisper.
“I will explain later,” he said just as quietly. Raising his voice and his sword, he continued, “Send us back and trouble us no more. Leave our descendants alone as well, and we will keep the truth of my wife’s ancestry secret. All will continue to believe her the descendant of a Spell Weaver. But if ye dinna return us, Mairwen will share with one and all that Emily descends from Cerridwen and King Zeerin, the Seelie king of the Seventh Realm, and therefore, our children are of Seelie and Unseelie blood. Both light and dark. Both sides united for the first time ever.”
“Ye canna tell the truths if we keep ye here. We would be better served to keep ye prisoner.”
“Mairwen can share yer truths, and if ye take her, she has left a sealed text with each of the Weavers to be opened upon her disappearance.”
“There is no way ye could have arranged that!” the voices said, squalling like a rising storm. “We took ye afore ye had time.”
“Nay, my pompous goddesses. It would seem ye are not so all-knowing. Mairwen spoke to me in my thoughts as the irritating witch is wont to do. She assured me this would be done. She knew it would be the only way to make ye listen—since ye wish yer indiscretions kept secret.” Gryffe threw out his chest with pride. He had forgotten how satisfying it felt to fully connect with his dark side and create a lie so stunning he almost believed it himself.
