Cassandra's Dilemma (27 page)

“Jacob, what does it mean?”

“I don’t know. Seeing echoes is not a Wizard’s gift.”

“Echoes?”

“Echoes. When strong emotions and feelings mark an area, those with a gift for it can see them as echoes. But I’ve always thought it was a Fae gift, one not passed to Wizards.”

“So you can’t do it?”

“I can, but only if I prepare a spell ahead of time and the event was fierce, leaving a powerful impression. It’s a complicated and energy-consuming spell, and even then, I am likely to only see ghostly, insubstantial images.”

“It wasn’t insubstantial. I could see the muscles on your back, the beads of sweat, and how they rippled when you…” She hesitated, heat roaring through her. His fingers flexed on the wood next to her, but he remained perfectly still save for a throbbing erection that was now pressing against her leg. “What does it mean?”

He didn’t answer for so long she was afraid he wouldn’t, but he pulled back and away. She wanted to cry out with the abandonment as he took one controlled step and then another away from her perch on the dresser. She’d never felt so naked and alone.

“It means we have more questions than answers.”

“I need answers.”

“I know you do.” He extended a hand toward her.

* * * *

“Does your Glashthing have a name?” Cassie asked. They were back inside the SUV heading south on Highway 65.

“Glashtyn,” Jacob corrected. “And yes, he’s called
Domoir
.”

“Do more?”

Jacob chuckled. He’d slept for four hours. He insisted that she do the same. When she would have argued with him, he’d just lain down on the bed and gone to sleep, leaving her to her own devices. The door wouldn’t open when she tried it, and she imagined that the car wouldn’t leave him even if she’d been able to get to it. So she’d crawled onto the bed next to him and slept in spite of herself.

A shower, a twelve-ounce cup of strong, black coffee, and a bagel with cream cheese and she felt almost human. Sunglasses hid her golden eyes. She’d half hoped they would be back to normal, but they were still as gold as pirate doubloons with small slits of black where her pupils should be.

Jacob refrained from any comment on her eyes or their earlier conversation. Perhaps he was used to seeing the bizarre changes. Perhaps he didn’t care.
Perhaps I’m just obsessing over it.
Cassie grumbled internally.

“
Domoir
,” he repeated, rolling the first half of the word and shortening the second. D’oh m’oi. “That is the name he took for himself.”

“And he’s—a he?” Cassie studied the dashboard curiously. The smooth black-and-gray leather looked expensive, but not alive. “And he’s sentient? He knows that I’m here?”

“Yes, he’s a he, and yes, he knows you’re here. I think he likes you. He let you find the phone yesterday even though I wanted you kept inside and safe.”

“Well, I was safe. I was with him.” She leaped to the defense of the SUV—the
Glashtyn
, she corrected herself mentally. She even reached out a hand to stroke the dashboard. The entire vehicle bucked, and Cassie grabbed the “oh shit” handle as she bounced in the seat.

Jacob’s laughter filled the car with his deep, rich baritone. The sound of it relaxed her. She leaned back in the seat, avoiding petting the car—Glashtyn, she amended again—for fear it would pull another happy, happy, joy, joy bounce.

“You should get some sleep,” Jacob advised. “We have a few hours before we get there.”

“Still not telling me where there is?”

When they woke at the hotel, Jacob was all about packing up the candles, the supplies, and the cross-stitch into his bag. She doubted they would have stopped at the restaurant on the other side of the hotel for food if she hadn’t insisted. He wanted in the car and on the road. He’d turned south without consulting her, or a map or a GPS for that matter. He seemed to know exactly where they were going.

Cassie wasn’t even sure they were still in Indiana anymore.

“We’re going to see a friend.”

“Another Wizard?” she pressed. “Or your Dom?”

“My what?”

“Your guardian.”

Jacob slanted a look in her direction. “What do you do for a living?”

“You only said it once, and then you were all about ripping the cord out of my chest. Sorry I don’t have a copy of English to Fae on me.”

“Yes, we are going to see my
Domovoi
. He knows we’re coming, and I’d rather get there while the sun is still up.”

“We have a little over three days left.”

“You’re not going to let that go, are you?” He sighed.

“No. I’m not. You can drag me around in your Glashtyn and stash me with your Dom oh Voy. You can play all dark, mysterious, and wise—but I have a job to do, and sooner or later I will figure out how to unravel your locking spells and get out. Maybe Domoir will help me.” Hardball was not her favorite game, but she could play it. He didn’t want to buy what she was selling, and that was okay. She was no longer giving him a choice.

“All right. We’re going to see the
Domovoi
so I can stash you until this is over. Whatever is trying to stop the Danae is targeting you. I don’t know if it’s because you are her child or if it’s because you’re her mouthpiece. But they know they can hurt her through you, so that’s what they are doing.”

“Her child.” Cassie’s brows drew together. “Jacob, I’m not
her
child, and I’m not even sure I totally believe that story. At best, it would make her my great-great-grandmother, and how would anyone else know that?”

“There is no other Fae female who would dare go against the Danae’s own edicts—except the damn Danae.”

“There’s an edict about—”

“Stop. Don’t ask questions. I’ll try to explain.” Jacob puffed out a breath and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. The muscle in his jaw continued to twitch and tick.

She experienced a pang of sympathy for his predicament. He was a wild mass of contradictions. He protected, he seduced, and he defended. He was angry about her openness with the Fae, and for a brief moment, he’d looked repelled by the idea that she might be related to them. Strange, considering that he himself had to have a Fae father to be a Wizard in the first place.

The man’s surliness combined with his protective nature verged on adorable. As fond as she was of her own skin, she could appreciate the sentiment. But right now, all the wonderful alpha-male protection left her wounded and vulnerable.

She was so over that part.

“Helcyon told you about the purge—the attempt of Wizards to drive the Fae from our world and to end their ritual abandonment of their children. What he failed to mention is why. It’s not just the daddy issues, and yes, before you ask, a lot of us do have daddy issues.”

Cassie did not laugh at the growl in his voice.

“But it was more about the fact that so many were left untapped, untrained, and unaware of what they could do until something went horribly awry. Can you imagine that kind of power in a Manson? A Bundy? A McVeigh? It happened.” His gaze fixed on the road. “Wizards live a long time. A very long time. We can take the long view, because we have to. Many of the Wizards were drawn together—called by the power in their blood—by the very human craving for companionship.”

The silence filled the space between them in the car. Cassie listened to the sound of his breathing. She waited for him to work out his inner turmoil and continue.

“The choice to wage war against the Fae was a reactionary one. Despite what I said earlier, I don’t agree with the tactic. We basically reacted like wounded animals and wounded in return. Few if any Fae women conceived with human males. They enjoyed cavorting with them, but their children were few and far between. When they did have them—they replaced human children with their own.”

“Changelings.”

“Yes. Changelings couldn’t go Underhill. They broke down the world around them. No one understood why it worked that way—why male Fae produced offspring that became Wizards and female Fae produced Changelings when they mated with humans. They just knew that it did. But again, conception was rare—it’s rare even when Fae mate together, much less when a female mates with a human male.”

“But the male Fae are not as inhibited?”

“No, apparently they can father children quite easily, at least by comparison. Either way, when the Inquisition resulted in the deaths of numerous female Fae, the Danae passed an edict that no female Fae would consort with human males again—in part for protection of their lives and in part for protection of the species.”

“So if a female Fae became pregnant, it would be with a full Fae and not some half-breed Changeling that they couldn’t even bring home.” Cassie tried to imagine the mindset of the female Fae who would give up their children.

“Yes, and the Danae breaking her own edict doesn’t surprise me, but that she didn’t destroy the child, that she placed it in a home, nurtured the human child Underhill, and kept close track of your family, does.” It wasn’t a pleasant surprise, either, based on the grimness of his tone.

“Do you think that child is still alive?”

“I doubt it. Helcyon said she passed when your great-grandmother did. That’s usually the way of the Changeling. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”

“So my great-grandmother was a Changeling. But I’m not. I’m three generations later.”

“Yes—and no.” The rolling green outside the windows seemed to just be more of the same, so ordinary a backdrop for so extraordinary a story.

“I don’t understand.”

“You have Fae blood. It really doesn’t matter how many generations separate you from your great-grandmother. But you’re stronger than you should be. You probably have great instincts, the ability to pick a winner, decent luck, and a great bullshit detector. But you break down glamours. You shatter them like they aren’t there, and you do it unconsciously.”

“So?”

“So who’s your father?”

Cassie went silent. She had no idea. It was a subject her mother never broached.

“That’s what I thought.” Jacob angled his head to watch her and the road at the same time. His eyes weren’t disguised behind a pair of sunshades. The tightness in his expression betrayed a measure of concern beyond their current situation.

“If your father was Fae, then you’re something totally different. You’re the reason why the Danae is ready to come out into the world. She wants to claim you. That makes you more than a target.”

Coldness crawled over her skin and clamped down on her chest. “That makes me the cause of the explosion. I killed Billy.”

“No. The Feth Felen killed Billy. The bastard who sent the Feth Felen to kill you killed Billy. You’re a victim, Cassie.”

“How can you be so positive of that?”

“Because you don’t know what you are, and your pointy-eared watch dog was doing his damnedest to make sure you didn’t know. Which means he’s under orders to keep it from you. When you were wounded, they damned the consequences and took you Underhill.”