Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
She slid out of her leather jacket and tossed it onto the cushion before taking her seat. A waitress appeared almost immediately and poured each of them a cup of coffee.
Lorcan let her take a fortifying sip before saying, “It’s good to see you.” He crossed his arms. “Shall I guess as to why we’re meeting here?”
She released a long, slow breath. “If you’d like.”
“You made up.”
“We did,” she confirmed.
His mouth pinched at the corners. “And now you are working together again. So this is what? Goodbye?” he asked with a sardonic smile, leaning with his arm slung against the booth back, his eyes humoring her.
“I hardly think that I can completely escape you in the state we’re in.”
“Now you’re talking sense.”
For a moment, she wanted to tell him the real reason that Graves had sent her away. That he had done the right thing after that. That he hadn’t wanted her to have the same fate as Emilie.
But if she told him, the explosion would be nuclear. She doubted he would stop before kidnapping and locking her up in his place like a princess trapped in a tower. The last thing she needed right now.
She needed to veer away from that course of action. And anyway, she had another question that she hadn’t considered until she had him sitting before her. She rested her arms on the tabletop. “Do you know what happened with Kingston and Saoirse?”
Lorcan dropped his arm, the surprise evident on his face. “Where did this come from?”
“A story that Graves told me that Kingston told him.”
“Which was?” Lorcan asked.
“Supposedly, Saoirse was injured sometime in England near Kingston’s country estate. He saved her and helped her get back on her feet. Then she drained his magic and fled. When Saoirse died, Graves said that Kingston was in mourning over it.”
Lorcan’s brows came together. Then he burst into laughter. “What a crock of shit.”
“That’s not what she said happened? I wasn’t sure if she told you.”
“Of course she told me,” he said as if he could say it fiercely enough it would be always true. “That’s not at all what happened.”
“Graves said he could never get the full story from Kingston.”
“I’m sure that rankled him,” he grumbled under his breath.
“Lorcan…”
“Saoirse was injured in England. She fell off her horse and broke her ankle, walked for miles after the beast fled her side,” he recalled as if it were yesterday and not more than a hundred years ago. “She came upon Kingston’s estate not knowing who it belonged to.”
“A warlock, you mean.”
“Indeed. It was hundreds of years since the warlocks and wisps were in conflict, and a hesitant truce had been established, but she didn’t trust him. Wisps can kill warlocks, as you well know.”
She remembered Archie dead at her hands. “I do.”
“Well, warlocks had it out for the Fae, too, to try to destroy their natural enemy. As I said, the truce was hesitant.”
“But whoever broke it was tracked down and killed. That’s what I heard.”
“If they were caught,” Lorcan said drily. “As we know, the Fae Killer never was. I doubt he was the only monster to get away with killing your kind.”
She didn’t like that thought one bit. “So what happened with them?”
“Kingston took her in not knowing what she was. He had his physician set her leg, and she stayed while it was healing. He fell for her.”
Kierse sputtered. “What? Kingston?”
“You have to understand that everyone was like that with Saoirse. She’d never met a stranger. She was sweet and beautiful. She…” He cleared his throat, glancing away as memory choked him. “She was alive in a way few other people are.”
“So what happened?”
“He found out what she was, of course, and tried to kill her. She drained him nearly to death and then fled.”
“He loved her and still tried to kill her.”
“He never loved her,” Lorcan swore. “He was infatuated with her. Obsessed. And she did the right thing to escape him.”
“Hmm,” she said, musing over the story.
“Why the questions about ancient history?” he asked. “You’re thinking something.”
“Kingston is coming into town,” she supplied.
Her stomach twisted at the words that weren’t said. Kingston was the Fae Killer. Kingston had killed Saoirse, a woman he claimed to love and her two children. He had massacred Lorcan’s family. As he had destroyed Kierse’s entire race. Lorcan had every reason to be there when they put him in the ground.
“He’s the Fae Killer.”
Lorcan’s hands flattened on the table. He paled at the words. Disbelief and fury warred in his features before he said, “How?”
So she explained about her memory of her parents’ deaths, how that led them to find Dallas, and buried in Dallas’s memories was the answer they had been searching for. That she had taken Kingston to the Fae and he had murdered them. The only thing they didn’t know was why.