“No! Don't, Dad!” Brevyn shouted.
It was too late. Arach grabbed my finger.
No, not my finger. The ring upon it. The ring of remembrance that my father gave me. It was glowing, and it kept glowing when he pulled it off. For a second, I thought Arach had acted in time, but then I was gone, whisked away to another time by a careless wish and a ring that was no longer on my finger.
Chapter Six
“No,” I whispered as I stood up.
Had I been taken to the Earth Kingdom? Nope. I hadn't actually mentioned the Earth Kingdom, had I? And that's not how the ring worked. I said I wanted to be in a real faerie tale, so that traitorous ring plopped me exactly where I was, just in the past. In the time of Rivella's tale. Thousands of fey years ago. And there was no bed in the room to catch my fall. It was back to being the sitting room it used to be before we transformed it into Samara's bedroom.
“Arach?” I called, even though it was foolish.
I had left Arach back in the present. With our children. And my ring.
“Fuck.” The moment was appropriate for a real curse word.
Then a familiar voice said something in Fey.
I spun toward the door. “Arach!” I ran to him in relief and hugged him. “Oh, thank goodness you're here.”
Arach chuckled, and the sound was low and wicked. Then he said something that was probably naughty, but I didn't understand it because he was still speaking Fey, and my dumb ass never got around to learning it. I did understand his hands sliding over my back and down to my ass.
“Oh, fuck!” I pushed away from him. “You're not my Arach.”
Arach smoothly switched to English, though it was an older version of it. “You know of another?” He laughed. Then he narrowed his eyes at my face. In particular, at the scales that had emerged at my temples, brought on by my emotional upheaval. He looked closer at my eyes. And then he breathed in. Deeply. “No. It's not possible,” he whispered. “You're . . .”
“A Dragon-Sidhe.” I grimaced. “Yeah, we went through this before. I'm full too. But fully other things as well.”
“One cannot be more than fully one thing.”
“Au contraire mon faerie.” I waved a finger at him. “One can befullythe sexy King of Fire andfullyan idiot. You took my ring. Ugh!” I threw up my hands. “If you had just let me go, I could have come right back. But no! You grabbed the ring and tried to stop me! What is wrong with you?”
“The sole female Dragon-Sidhe in existence and she's mad,” Arach muttered.
“You're damn straight I'm mad. I'm furious!”
Arach grimaced. “Mad as in insane.” Then he shrugged. “Alas. You're only necessary for breeding.”
“Ha!” I pointed at him. “There it is. That's what we had to overcome.”
“What are you going on about, woman? And where did you come from? Also, why are you speaking such a strange dialect?”
“Okay, brace yourself.”
“Oh-kay?” He scowled.
“It means all right. Look, maybe we should sit down?” I waved at the couch near the window.
“After you, Madam.”
“Arach just called me 'Madam,'” I muttered as I went to sit down. “Why the hell do I make dumb wishes?”
“Dumb wishes?” Arach sat beside me.
I rubbed my face wearily. “My name is Vervain Lavine. I'm the daughter of Aednat and Finnian.”
“They were lost long ago. Along with my parents.”
