Page 63 of Demure
Aodhan nodded. He sat beside her, leaving a few inches of space, and turned to face her. “I’m so sorry, Sierra. You are right; I owe you an explanation, but please, first tell me what happened since I last saw you.”
“No,” Sierra snapped. “You can find out what happened to me after you explain the process of trying to woo me based on the predictions of a seer!”
Aodhan winced. “You’ve been talking to Aisli-an, I see.”
“Yes, so you’d better start explaining.”
Aodhan sighed, running one of his hands through his curly brown hair, which was much more unkempt than the last time she had seen him. Now that she wasn’t in panic mode, Sierra was able to take in the fact that he was wearing similar clothes to Aislan, but they were all one color, a dull gray that didn’t seem to fit his complexion, and there was stubble across his chin, suggesting he indeed had been locked up. Sierra also noticed his eyes looked bloodshot; at least she hadn’t been the only one losing sleep.
“I don’t know where to start,” he edged.
“The beginning,” Sierra replied firmly, bending one of her legs to mirror the way Aodhan was sitting so she could face him. She crossed her arms over her chest, but then became aware of how mean she probably looked, so she released them, clasping her hands together in her lap instead. She didn’t know why her heart was in her throat at the thought of what Aodhan would say, but she could barely swallow over the bundle of nerves. She knew, though, that this feeling wouldn’t go away until they discussed everything, as uncomfortable as the conversation might be. Sierra had learned a long time ago that avoiding difficult conversations only made things worse. They were like a band-aid, best ripped off sooner rather than later.
“Well then,” Aodhan reached out his hands as if to touch Sierra’s face, but he quickly thought better of it, resting them on the bed in front of him instead. “I should start by telling you that myfather wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, he was friendly and kind, or so my mother says. I wasn’t conceived yet. But he’s over 500 years old now, and that kind of time, well, it changes a person. During his time, he watched as his world was irreparably changed for a reason he didn’t—couldn’t—understand.”
Aodhan paused, motioning to the room around them. “Once, Sidhe was a land filled with nothing but magic. Just crossing the barrier would allow you to feel it in the air. Most Fae used magic to go about their daily tasks, often not just having one gift, but three or four, depending on the magic their parents possessed when they were conceived.
“But over the course of my father’s lifetime, magic began to fade, and the older he grew, the more rapidly it faded. As a member of the council, many of the citizens began to look to the council for answers, thinking they could find a solution to the draining magic. Over time, the pressure grew even more immense.”
“But I thought you said your father was born with weak magic?”
Aodhan nodded. “That is what I believe, but Fae don’t usually have magic when they are young, and it develops during puberty. My father is convinced his magic failed to develop, although it is much more likely that he was born with very little magic to begin with.
“When I came along, my father was even more disgruntled to find that while I developed strong powers, it was still nothing compared to the generation prior to my father, and when Aislan developed even less magic…” he trailed off. “Well, about 50 years ago, his previous passion project became an all-out witch hunt. He was convinced that the Fae were cursed by some ancient being. First, he thought it was because we had disobeyed Mother Nature at some point, but slowly, the blame turned to the practice of intermarrying with humans. He believed that the loss of magic was a punishment from Gaia for marrying outside of our race.
“But the thing is, Fae and humans once lived side by side, andI truly don’t believe the intermarrying was that big of an impact, except for in those lines where the Fae repeatedly married humans. Which, while it does occasionally happen for the Fae that stay in Sidhe their entire lives—it is truly rare—usually, the magic in the bloodline would bounce back in the next generation.” Aodhan lifted his eyes from his hands to meet hers. “And there was another major problem with this theory. As my family has weak magic, and we haven’t had a human marry into our line for generations, it meant this couldn’t be the true reason the Fae are losing magic.
“And so, my father began going through old texts, often taking me along with him. I grew up thinking that magic was something the Fae were owed for being Fae, and that it was an absolute crime that it had been taken from us, no matter the reason behind it.
“But then, about two years ago, I started to look at how my father was treating Aislin. Not just on the surface, where he was cordial but cold, but I could truly see how he consistently brushed aside Aislin’s thoughts or feelings without hearing them out first. And for the first time in my life, I began to doubt the path my father was on. I didn’t think that Fae should be treated differently solely because of their level of magic, something that is completely out of their own control.
“Then, about a year ago, my father asked me to journey north to a seer who is well known in Sidhe. When I got there, she wasn’t anything like I expected. She seemed young, maybe one or two centuries, and when I walked in, I could tell she already knew all about me. Before I even sat down to explain to her why I was there, she said, “She’s waiting for you.” And I was more confused than I had ever been.
“But then she put my hands on her temple and showed me images of you. She showed you shelving books in the library, walking down the street, and sitting by the wall, eating your lunch. As your images passed through my mind, I must confess my first thought was how beautiful you were, and then thesecond thought was how alone you were. I never saw anyone else with you. I can’t deny I was attracted to you, but at the time, I was more attracted to my father’s approval, so I didn’t even ask the seer what she meant when she said you were waiting. I just went back to my father and told him that the answer was a girl in Dublin, and I described you to him.
“I knew you were human. I saw your rounded ears in the visions I was shown, and at the time I really didn’t think much of humans, to be honest. I didn’t share the same hatred my father does, but to me it made no difference. You were going to bring my father’s approval; I was sure of it. I never…not for a minute did I even think that maybe the seer had meant for those images to be just for me. That you were meant for me, irrespective of my father’s plans. My mind had never worked that way before.
“Then I arrived in Dublin, and you weren’t in any of the places where the fortune teller showed me, and for the first time in my life, I realized I might have made a hasty decision. I should’ve asked about when you were, and, more importantly, who you were.
“I was about to give up after about six months of waiting, when, at the end of the summer, I just happened to be walking across campus, and I happened to look at where I had been routinely checking for you. And there you were, leaning against that brick wall, looking at your phone, and I realized you were even more beautiful than you had been in the seer’s visions. I also realized I neglected to remember that I could feel your emotions. For the first time in my life, I felt immense loneliness looking at you. I wasn’t sure at first if it was truly coming from you, or a byproduct of my own emotions at always seeing you alone. But I began to visit the places of the visions, and you were often in many of them, and the loneliness remained.
“I was at a crossroads. Something told me to go back to my father and report that I had gone to find you in the wrong century. But something held me there. I felt as if the threads of fate had meant for me to find you. So, after the third or fourthtime of seeing you, I went home and asked Braan what I should do.
“To my absolute shock, he recommended I download some app called Tinder. Which I did, and he taught me how to use it. It took me almost a month of shuffling through all the pictures on there, until I saw yours, and when I matched with you, I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, I realized that while I knew you, and some of the things you did, you knew nothing about me. I beat myself up over what I should say to you for a few days, and it was this mentality and debating with myself that made me late to our first date, and I’m sorry for that.
“But then I met you, and you became more than just some attractive stranger in a vision; you were this fiery, intelligent, human being, and I wanted to be around you more than anything I’d ever wanted before. Reading your emotions made me feel things I have never felt here in Sidhe. Even so, something told me that I needed to stay away from you and that my father would eventually take you away from me no matter what I wanted. It was this constant war waging inside myself that caused my behavior—and your confusion—the first month we knew each other, and for that, I’m also sorry.”
Sierra looked up at Aodhan, his eyes meeting hers. She was about to say something, but he pressed a finger softly to her lips and continued, “Maybe I should’ve stayed away. But the longer I spent with you, the more I couldn’t bear to leave, even though you hated me. Then, that day in the library with the drunk guy…I felt your absolute shame and horror when you knew I had seen your skin, and the idea that people, your own race of people, had made you feel that way about something that was out of your control was so abhorrent to me.
“I know you never told me, but I could tell that men, specifically, had made you feel bad about it before…and it was then I knew that I would spend the rest of your life trying to convince you to see yourself the way that I see you, a demure light that deserves to shine brightly in the never-ending darkness of life.”
Sierra’s heart melted as surely as the tears flowed down her cheeks. Before she could think of the consequences of what she was about to do, she leaned up, pressing her lips to Aodhan’s, and the world around them faded. And so they were, two souls who had found their fates strangely intertwined in the tapestry of life.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Aodhan kissed her back like a man starving, his hands coming to rest on her hip and shoulder as Sierra ran her hands up his chest.
Aodhan leaned into the kiss, using the hand on Sierra’s hip to guide her back to lay on the bed. With a mind of their own, her legs came to wrap around his waist, wanting him closer, feeling his hard length pressing into her center from beneath his pants.
