“Aye.”
“And?”
“She is coming.”
Excitement thrummed through him. At last, he would finally meet his fated mate. “Show me.”
Mairwen shook her head. “I fear that would be unwise, my prince. Ye should meet her when the Fates decide. But I swear she is coming, and that yer meeting will happen quite soon.”
“Why would it be unwise for me to just look upon her, old one? I know ye have ways of viewing those whom ye wish to match.”
Mairwen studied him, her expression unreadable. “Ye would notfeelthe connection with my ways, and it would be unwise, as I said.”
“I will feel the connection when she arrives. Did ye not say she comes?”
“I did.”
“Then allow me to see her so I know what to expect.”
The old one pursed her lips, her somehow thoughtful silence grating on his nerves. “What if ye dislike what ye see?” she asked. “Will ye refuse her and spend the rest of this life denying that half of yer soul?”
Very few things possessed the power to frighten or make Jeros uneasy, but Mairwen was one of them. “Show me and allow me to decide.”
“Very well.” She moved to the table and picked up one of her strange flat slabs of mirror-like rock. “This is my assistant’s tablet. She has connected it to Scotland’s surveillance cameras. Do not ask me how. I leave all that to Keeva. But she has also somehow focused it on Lexington Elizabeth Vine with some sort of tracking device. It will allow you to see yer Lexi, as she likes to be called, as she approaches Seven Cairns.” She tapped on the reflective surface of the rock, the tablet as she had called it, then handed it to him. “There. The lass with the long brown hair. There is yer fated mate, my prince.”
The tall, young woman dressed in a shockingly tight pair of blue trews faced away from the camera, revealing a fine shapely arse and a thick mane of dark brown hair pulled back and knotted at her nape. It cascaded down her back in a river of tempting curls. His fingers itched to bury themselves in what looked to be their silky depths.
She was slight of build and had a delicateness about her, even though she walked with surety in her colorful red boots with the strange decorations and sharply pointed toes. He wished she would turn so he could see her face. But when she did, he gasped and drew back. The sight of her made his heart dip low, and all excitement left him. “She is…disfigured.”
“Yes. She almost died in an automobile accident when she was naught but a small child. Yer Lexi has been through a great deal to become the lovely young woman she is today.”
“Lovely?” He would not use that word to describe the hazel-eyed lady smiling and chatting with someone beside her. Pleasant enough, perhaps. But never lovely. The right side of her face was covered in scars, her cheekbone slightly misshapened and flatter, not full and high-boned like her left. Why did she not wear a mask? Or a scarf? Why did she not do something to try to hide that side of her face?
“So the rumors are true,” Mairwen said. “Ye are the Prince of Perfection, unable to see past the surface of anything. It is one’s soul, one’s heart that is truly beautiful or ugly, my prince. What would I see if I looked within ye and viewed yers? Would I see beauty or ugliness in yer heart and soul?”
Indignance shot through him like a swallow of raw whisky. “That is not fair, old one. Ye knew I would be shocked by her appearance. Ye baited me.”
“I did no such thing. I advised ye to wait. Ye refused.”
“Why would the Fates match me with such a woman?”
“Yer souls were matched lifetimes ago. Would ye waste this lifetime and miss the joy the two of ye could share?”
“She is mortal. Her lifespan is but the blink of an eye.”
Mairwen spat like an angry cat. “Ye know as well as I that as soon as the two of ye bind yerselves one to the other that her lifetime will match yers. ’Tis part of the Seelie alliance with the goddesses. Unlike the limits they place upon the Weavers who dare to love mortals. Consider yerself blessed.”
The bitterness of her tone insulted him. He held out the tablet, ready to be rid of it. “Is there no way to heal her? Cover her disfigurement with a glamor?”
“Are ye truly that superficial? That vain?” Mairwen threw up her hands. “Perhaps ye would be better suited marrying that cruel princess of the Fifth Kingdom. Yer heart and soul are as black as hers. Now ye ken why I delayed this match. Mistress Lexi deserves much better than the likes of yerself.”
“I am not that shallow!” Indignant rage charged through him. How dare Mairwen accuse him of such. He was merely shocked by the woman’s appearance. He realized full well that it was what lay beneath the surface that mattered. “Ye trapped me,” he accused again, trying to convince himself as much as trying to convince Mairwen. He was ashamed of his reaction, realizing he was no better than his mother. “If she is my fated mate, I will do right by her. I will not reject her.”
“Well, my…my. Aren’t ye generous?” Mairwen placed the tablet on the table and walked away. “I suppose we shall see if she accepts ye, yer high and mightiness. This meeting is finished.”
“Ye dare dismiss me as if I were a young, thoughtless cub?”
Mairwen whirled about, the unsettling blue of her eyes brightening with an eerie light as thunder rumbled and lightning flashed outside. “Yearea thoughtless cub, but I expected no less from the son of Queen Nyna. Leave, Prince Jeros, and do not return until ye have learned the lessons that Fate hopes to teach ye.”
