“Essentially. Anytime you need to refer to the world that the humans are ignorant of, you’ll say the Unseen. That is how we identify ourselves, and we take the title literally.”
I nodded. “I noticed.” Rising from the floor, I narrowed my gaze on him. “Can we talk somewhere else?”
“Indeed.” He walked to the door, still open, and motioned to someone in the hall.
A strange noise reached me, and I hurried over to stand beside Alexander so I could see too. It looked like a magical gateway into someone’s living room.
Alexander stepped through the opening and motioned for me to follow. I had nowhere else to go, so I followed. “Where are we?” I asked as I stepped into what looked like a rich dude’s man cave.
“This is my home.” He sat on the leather sofa with an ounce of flourish. “Join me, please.”
His home was ridiculous. Nobody needed such a fancy room. “Yours, huh?” I refrained from rolling my eyes. My mama would’ve said the room looked like it came from old money.
“Indeed. I’d like to start by apologizing for assuming you were a threat to us and our way of life.”
“What is it about my cousin Riley that got you guys all agitated?” I asked as I walked around the room. The wall to my left was a floor to ceiling bookshelf, but all the books looked like ancient, leather bound tomes. Nothing I’d want to read, though no doubt they had interesting histories.
“Why do you think your cousin means anything to us?”
I snorted. “Come on, dude.” I saw him straighten his tie out of the corner of my eye as I walked around the back of the couch he sat on. His desk beckoned me, and I sat in the high back chair behind it. “Roan’s eyes lit up when I said her name. How do you know her?”
“Riley is currently on the run, in danger from an ancient enemy. I’m sorry I didn’t put two and two together right away, but I hadn’t been aware until today that your species could shift. I was only told about the fire.”
“There’s fire? How bad is she? Can we help?”
“Indeed.” He wasn’t much for long speeches, apparently. “We are doing all we can to assist, in fact we had a large number of volunteers, eager to assist, but she and her Supay men seem to have it in hand.”
“What about the kids and her husband? What’s a Supay?”
He sighed and straightened his back. “A Supay is a sort of vampire. They’re a species in the Unseen world, alongside many others. The children are fine.”
“What about Michael, her husband?”
“He’s been dead for five years.”
Poor Riley. “Who is chasing her? What other species?”
“Which question would you like me to answer first?”
I narrowed my eyes. He was toying with me. “The one you’d least like to answer.”
He laughed. “You’re clever. Riley is being pursued by the ancient enemy of her, and your, people.”
I shivered, suddenly scared. “How terrified should I be?”
“I’ll protect you.”
“Nobody protects me but me.” I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
“I’m afraid you underestimate the determination of the Leyak.”
“Leek? Like the vegetable? And what other species?” I was bouncing from snippet of information to snippet of information, trying to piece together a full picture. “And most importantly, what am I?”
“You are a Sárkány. A dragon. I’m of the Dannan. The common name for the race of the Dannan is the Fae. We don’t prefer that name.”
A dragon. That was cool. And I’d read a book or two…thousand…in my life. I knew of the Dannan. “You’re Irish?” Most fairy lore originated in Ireland.
“Our story begins there, at least for this realm. We don’t exist entirely on this plane, though we have been stuck here for a very long time.” His eyes took on a weary quality as he spoke as if recalling some long ago life, one that he missed very much.
